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Music: Holy is the true lightÌý- Harris
Cambridge Singers, conducted by John Rutter
CD: This is the Day: Music on Royal Occasions (Collegium)

+Sarah
Good morning. Two days ago the United Kingdom commemorated the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe day, when the sounds of war fell silent on this continent. As we remember the many soldiers, sailors, and airmen who gave their lives restraining evil and opposing tyranny, so we also come in thanksgiving for the years of peace that the nations of Europe have enjoyed since the Second World War.

VE commemorates victory on the battlefield after uncountable suffering and loss, but 1945 also marked the beginning of a social transformation, in health, education and housing. Recently we have seen another herculean national effort invoking the name of the nation's most famous nurse, Florence Nightingale, who also forged her reputation and skills in a time of national crisis. On Tuesday we mark the bicentenary of her birth.

So as we commemorate VE day, and reflect on the life and legacy of Florence Nightingale, in today's service we ask 'What are we building today? What does the moment require of us, not just in solidarity now but in the years to come, in shaping a more compassionate world?'

Let usÌýpray.

Lord God our Father,
we pledge ourselves to serve you and all humankind, in the cause of peace,
for the relief of want and suffering,
and for the praise of your name.
Guide us by your Spirit;
give us wisdom;
give us courage;
give us hope;
and keep us faithful now and always.
Amen.

Music: O God, our help in ages past (St Anne)
Westminster Abbey Choir, conducted by Martin Neary
CD: Favourite Hymns from Westminster Abbey (Griffin)

+Sarah
Westminster Abbey was all set to play its part in the celebration of VE Day this weekend, with a special service hosting Royalty, Military and Political leaders, with specially commissioned music. The Revd Mark Birch is Precentor at the Abbey.

Rev Mark Birch

Although it is sad to reflect on what might have been going-on here at Westminster Abbey for the 75th anniversaryÌý- with all the excitement and colour and splendour of what was plannedÌý- VE Day feels like the perfect moment to reflect upon, in our current situation: a time when we're all wondering what comes next?

On May 8th 1945 the Abbey celebrated hourly services of Thanksgiving, and over 25 000 people came through its doors.Ìý Members of the House of Commons were led by the Prime Minister in a service of thanksgiving in St Margaret's Church, just next door.ÌýÌý

I spoke to Barbara Wetherill last week, the irrepressible veteran who was due to give a testimony at the service.Ìý She reflected that amidst all the joy and excitement of VE Day in 1945 there was also a strong sense of 'what now?Ìý What next?'Ìý How would we come to terms with the terrible loss of life during nearly 6 years of war?Ìý How would the country be re-built?Ìý It's clear that the challenges we're facing today are not new.Ìý We have faced them, or something like them, before, and it was inspiring to hear Barbara's confidence that we will find a way.

The Abbey has stood at the heart of this country's political life for centuries; it's seen many crises come and go, and has played its part in articulating the nation's sorrows and thanksgivings, not least around the Grave of the Unknown Warrior.Ìý The Abbey's very presence proclaims the words of Psalm 46: 'God is our hope and strength: a very present help in trouble?', words that were to be sung at our 75th anniversary VE celebrations; words to reassure us as we look to the future.

As ever - the Abbey stands ready to play its part in giving thanks to God for the heroes of our own day, and to commend to His keeping the many souls that have departed this life too soon.

Music: Psalm 46 (Anglican chant)
Westminster Abbey Choir, conducted by Martin Neary
CD: Psalms from the first half of the Psalter (Erato/Warner Classics)

+Sarah

The Victoria Cross is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It's awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces. In the dark days of September 1940, King George VI instituted another award, The George Cross, in order to recognise the many acts of civilian courage.

Dom Troulan is a retired British Army officer and former Royal Marine. In 2017 he was awarded the George Cross for his extraordinarily brave actions that saved so many lives during the 2013 Westgate Shopping Mall terrorist attack in Nairobi. After this we hear from Rebecca Maciejewska who is Secretary to the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association.

Reflection: Dom Troulan

During my 40 year career I have experienced many wars and conflicts, and in more recent times the surge in 'global terrorism', demonstrating the human want and destruction of communities, societies and countries, motivated by ideologies, greed, political gain, or just an ability to kill the innocent. This was demonstrated in the Westgate Mall attack in 2013, were I closely witnessed terrorists killing unarmed men, women and young children without remorse, compassion, or sacred values.

We are reflecting with thought and prayer this weekend of the sacrifices made by so many during the 2nd WW and in particular within Europe. The servicemen and women of that, and my own generation, knew the enemy, they were very real and tangible.

Today, all of us are in some way affected by an 'enemy' that not visible or tangible, an unknown enemy, COVID-19. But the same rules apply today, as they did in WW2 and through my own experiences. Battle lines are drawn, rules of engagement are planned and authorised - except today's front-line Soldiers are the NHS and the Carers.

But no army can win a war without the support of others. Within our community and society, no matter how small or insignificant a job may seem, our efforts can help create the glue for the front-line combatants of today fighting Covid19, with one single aim of defeating the enemy. I believe that King George the VI and Florence Nightingale would be extremely proud of today's determination, resolve, and community spirit.

Music: Be still my soul (Finlandia)
CD: 50 Best-loved hymns (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Reflection: Rebecca Maciejewska

This past week, the members of the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association, which I am privileged to support, were to have come together in London from across the Commonwealth.Ìý This reunion takes place every other year and this year it was decided that it would coincide with VE Day, so that the recipients of these two awards, the highest for acts of gallantry and valour, might together celebrate the vanquishing of the evil that was embodied in Nazi-ism.

It is not a coincidence that these two awards are both represented by a Cross.Ìý Queen Victoria and King George VI consciously chose this symbol.Ìý For Christians, the cross is the ultimate symbol of suffering and victory, of endurance through the bleakest of times when all seems lost.Ìý No human can achieve the victory of Christ but we are all called to follow and with His help to overcome our fear, ultimately sharing in His victory.

As we reflect and celebrate VE Day, in the words of a prayer of the Armed Forces: Let us remember the kindness of God, his favour to us in time of need.Ìý Let us remember the courage, devotion to duty and self-sacrifice of the men and women of our Armed Forces, the toil, endurance and suffering of those who were not in uniform, the support of those who sent us help from afar, or came and stood by our side.

Music: Be still my soul (Finlandia)

+Sarah
As VE day was celebrated 75 years ago the war had left a legacy in the Health Service. Nurses and midwives had taken on new roles, carrying on in extraordinary circumstances whilst continuing to show compassion. The awareness of health inequalities which those nurses and midwives had gained shaped the health system for the future. It is a story which is mirrored in war, from the Crimean to our present day Covid 19 pandemic.

Florence Nightingale was born in the city of Florence 200 years ago and was baptized into the Church of England. A talented mathematician, she was also drawn to caring for the sick and made no secret of an explicit calling from GodÌý- a call to service. She believed that God wanted to change the world.

The Church of England then, as now, has a liturgy for the deliverance from plague, pestilence and famine. Florence believed that we should not only pray for deliverance, but we should work to bring deliverance.

Florence would have served in civilian hospitals, if she had been allowed to, but like many nurses her opportunity to serve came in war - the Crimean War - and many will know her as the lady with the lamp keeping watch over the injured soldiers.Ìý

The Times newspaper at this time reported:

She is a 'ministering angel' without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds.

On arriving in Crimea, Florence faced many challenges, not least that of setting up a hospital against a backdrop of high infections with more solders dying from disease than from their original injuries. She established and she served in the first field hospital ever run and tended by women.

Her legacy goes beyond nursing and her experience led to more general changes in society as so often is the case.

Her contribution to statistics and the development of diagrams similar to pie charts helped her the campaign for improvements in hospital infection control.Ìý Data backed up her belief in improved sanitation and ventilation, and the contribution of food and exercise to health.Ìý She also believed in nurses washing their hands regularly and that hospital beds should be placed at a safe distance apart from one another.

She was in no doubt that nurses needed to bring science, technical knowledge, skills and evidence to the task of caring for patients, together with empathy and compassion. It is a legacy built on by manyÌý in the Second World War and, of course, today. Modern day Nightingales bring science and technical knowledge to care with compassion for those in needÌý- even behind Personal Protective equipment.

In an address to nurses in 1873 in which Florence describes the vocation of a nurse she said 'Feeling God has made her what she is, she may seek to carry on her work in the hospital as a fellow worker with God.Ìý Remembering that Christ died for her, she may be ready to lay down her life for her patients'. The faith which underpinned her lifelong commitment to nursing could not be made clearer than that.

Music: Litany to the Holy Spirit (Peter Hurford)
The Choir of Chichester Cathedral, conducted by Sarah Baldock
CD: The day thou gavest (Herald)

+Sarah
In a few moments time our preacher is Rowan Williams. But first we hear words from the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 15. It's read by Revd Mia Hilborn, head of spiritual health care at St Thomas's Hospital in London.

Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:53-58

Sermon: Rowan Williams

History textbooks and history lessons at school often give you the feeling that events naturally divide themselves up into neat packages: ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, the Victorian era, the Second World War and so on, where the beginnings and endings are clear.Ìý You turn the page and something different starts.Ìý

Real history, like real life, very seldom works like that.Ìý For us in Britain, the Second World War began on a certain date in September 1939; but if we'd been living in Central or Eastern Europe, even more if we'd been part of a Jewish family in Germany, this date would have been just one moment in a story of trauma and suffering that had started many years earlier.

And so too with the end of the war.Ìý VE Day marks the decisive end of one set of conflicts, but those celebrating it in 1945 knew very well that many were still suffering and struggling in the Far East. And perhaps even more than this, they knew that ahead of them lay the massive task of reconstructing the society they lived in ? in Britain but also throughout Europe.

At this distance of time, we can forget just how much needed to be rebuilt, literally and metaphorically; the years immediately after the war were years that saw an unprecedented number of people worldwide displacedÌý- homeless and landless, uncertain where if anywhere they could put down roots.Ìý And something in the sheer experience of sharing suffering and loss had made it impossible just to go back to square one and continue as if nothing had happened.Ìý

Too many people had been through an experience that changed for ever their view of the world.Ìý There was a new urgency about letting more and more people have the care and security they deservedÌý- those people who had carried the weight of hard work and high risk in the war, at home or abroad.Ìý There was a new sense too, especially among those who had been present at the liberation of the death camps of the Third Reich, that human nature had been revealed at its very worst; part of the task ahead was to build trustworthy institutions, in and between the nations of the world, so as to limit the possibilities of insane cruelty and murderous bigotry ever getting the upper hand again in the life of human societies.ÌýÌýÌýÌý

This is what the human world is like: no tidy beginnings and endings ? but all the same, moments of clarity and insight, where we see the scale of the challenge we face.ÌýÌý Our reading from St Paul speaks of the promise that this fragile human world will one day be caught up into the endless glory of God and will be held securely in God's hands for ever.Ìý But this is not a moment that has already arrived in all its fullness in our history.Ìý We know about the promise because of the reality of Jesus? resurrection, the new life God has brought into being out of the worst of human injustice and human pain.Ìý But what this means is not an instant triumphant conclusion to history but a fresh commitment to work in the light of the promise we have glimpsed, confident that what we do has meaning because it is at one with the purposes of God.

In 1945, many, especially those with political power, recognised with a new force and conviction that the people who had done so much undramatic but essential work in wartime needed a proper recognition of their human needs and their human dignity.Ìý And if we start drawing the obvious parallels with where we are today, we can say that when this particular pandemic is over it will be time first to recognise with gratitude all those who have been doing the undramatic and necessary work, in all kinds of public service; and then to start thinking about how such people ought to be honoured and protected in societyÌý- how carers of all sorts deserve better support, how those doing routine jobs of public importance can have more security for themselves and their families.

As we've already been reminded today, this is the bicentenary of Florence Nightingale's birth; part of her abiding significance is the way she gave professional dignity to those who worked on the medical front line in times of war and crisisÌý- and we have never forgotten this legacy.

And then in addition to all this, when we emerge from our own current crisis, it will be time to think also of those entire societies or nations that are inadequately protected from disease and disaster, and to ask what they need and deserve.

Will we try to go back to square one? Or have we experienced enough shared struggle and loss to make us really want to change things? Our faith does not tell us that, if we work hard, things are bound to get better very soon and we can put all serious problems behind us for good.Ìý What it does say is simply that what we do out of an urgent sense of what is due to human beings made in God's image is not in vain: it is upheld by and absorbed into the eternal purpose of a God who uses all that we can offer him for the spread of human healing and the honouring of human dignity.ÌýÌý

Today's commemoration reminds us that while there are great watershed moments, there are no quick fixes in human history.Ìý We need strength and imagination for that stubborn, steady work of rebuilding ? rebuilding a society's health and stability, rebuilding so as to honour all its members and to recognise how much we depend on the matter-of-fact skill and patience of so many, rebuilding a world that offers all God's children the promise of a life that is just and safe. The good news of the resurrection tells us that nothing we do for the sake of our fellow human beings is lost since God's eternal purpose is healing and life; and because of this we can ?stand firm?.Ìý Our victory is not a once and for all triumph of human effort: it is the recognition that at the root of all things, all our acts and thoughts and hopes, lies a healing compassion that can never be extinguished.Ìý Thanks be to God who gives us this kind of victory.ÌýÌý

Music: Be thou my vision
Rebecca Arons
CD: Amazing Grace (Somerset Group)

Prayers (+Sarah)

Gracious God, we give thanks for 75 years of peace in our nation, remembering the human cost in the devastation and loss of so many lives. We pray that we will not squander that costly gift of peace but instead build on it in working for the transformation of our common life. May we create communities of neighbourliness and justice, shaped by friendship, compassion and love.

We give thanks for the insights and inspiration of Florence Nightingale and her on-going legacy in our present-day NHS. We pray for wisdom and skill for those searching for a vaccine for Covid-19. We remember with the deepest gratitude the midwives and nurses, doctors, and allied health professionals, carers and administrators who follow in Florence's footsteps and risk so much for the healing of the sick at this anxious time. And we remember all who have died and all those bereaved.

We pray for our world at a time when nations face a common threat; for our sisters and brothers in countries whose healthcare systems are far less sophisticated than our own; for those for whom the pandemic is just one more life-limiting threat alongside war and poverty. We hold our world before you, longing for healing.

Rejoicing in God's new creation, let us pray with confidence as our Saviour has taught us

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

Blessing: +Sarah

Hymn: Now thank we all our God (Nun danket)
Choir of King's College Cambridge, conducted by Stephen Cleobury
CD: Hymns from King's (King's College, Cambridge)

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