On the night of November 14^th, 1940, the Luftwaffe began a bombing operation which they codenamed ‘Moonlight Sonata’.  The target was the City of Coventry and it was a carefully planned operation with wave after wave of bombers raining their deadly weapons on the city which was all but obliterated.  568 people lost their lives but thousands more were made homeless and the city, next morning, lay in ruins.  This was a new tactic in war – the wholesale destruction of cities for which the Luftwaffe coined a new phrase which in English is – to coventrate.

At the heart of Coventry the medieval Cathedral of St. Michael burned with its city and became a vivid symbol of the destruction.  In some way the ruined Cathedral symbolized the soul having been ripped from the city.  When Churchill heard of the devastation he feared that it would lead to a loss of morale, not only in Coventry, but as a result – throughout the land. As news emerged of the dazed and shell-shocked people  it seemed that he was right and in some ways how Coventry reacted would determine the way the war would go.  If all was lost there, it could well be lost everywhere.

The people of Coventry were not shell-shocked for long and what followed was a remarkable display of British resilience, fortitude and determination – the same qualities that we are celebrating today as we remember those military men and women who gave their lives for the cause of Justice, Freedom and Peace.  Coventry was at the heart of the war effort with its munitions factories and within days the workers flooded back to the work – some to damaged buildings – and it wasn’t long before production re-started and with a new determination.  Output tripled.  Coventry was bloodied but unbeaten.

Amongst the decisions taken on the morning following the raid was that the Cathedral would rise like a Phoenix from the Ashes.   It was an act of faith and trust on the part of the Cathedral Provost, Dick Howard.  He saw that if the city was to regain its soul then it needed its spiritual focus.  It took until 1962 for the beautiful Cathedral of St. Michael to be completed and it stands today as a sign of Provost Howard’s vision but it stands for much more.

It would have been easy for the people of Coventry to be filled with bitterness and hatred but that turned out to be not the case.  The determined spirit of the  people also became a hopeful spirit.  War had destroyed their city but it was not allowed to destroy the people’s hope.

On the morning after the fire the Cathedral’s stonemason noticed that two of the medieval roof timbers had fallen across each other in the shape of a cross.  He tied them together and set this Cross on the ruined altar.  The Provost, seeing this, inscribed the words, Father Forgive’ behind the Cross.  At the same time, a local priest, looking amongst the rubble, found three of the huge medieval nails which he fashioned into the shape of a Cross.  He was not to know, as he did this, that he was giving Coventry a mission that was to resound around the world.  The ‘Cross of Nails’ has become a symbol of Reconciliation which is at the heart of the Cathedral’s ministry today.

Last Thursday, I visited Coventry and stood in the ruins of the old Cathedral – a shell which has become in itself a focus for this ministry of Reconciliation.  There is a statue with this name – a beautiful and moving statue of two people, a man and a woman, kneeling and embracing each other tenderly. It speaks of forgiveness, and reconciliation and renewed hope.  It is the work of a remarkable sculptor, Josefina de Vasconcellos.  In our Lady Chapel you will see another example of her work – the bas-relief carving of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus .

Josefina’s statue was originally commissioned for Bradford University.  Richard Branson commissioned her to cast a copy of it in bronze and in 1995, to mark the 50^th Anniversary of the end of the War, he gave it to Coventry Cathedral.  Since then, further copies have been made.  The people of Coventry sent one of these to the Peace Garden at Hiroshima – built on the site of the atomic bomb explosion.  When Berlin became a united city again, a further copy was given to them and there is another copy in the grounds of Stormont Castle in Northern Ireland.  All of these are, of course, places where human conflict has led to a healing and new growth of hope.  All this is a reminder that the true outcome of war must be a redoubling of effort for peace, for forgiveness as a move towards healing between nations and people, and  a renewed hope in human freedom which must always be rooted in justice.

War is always destructive and is in many ways a sign of failure because people and nations have been unable to resolve their differences in any other way.  But war is also regarded by many as a ‘just’ action when it confronts a great evil in the world.  The evil promoted by dictators, misplaced ideology, and sheer unmitigated Satanism.  Those three elements were present in Germany and in Japan, and later in Russia and in so many other places of conflict in the world.

Whilst questions continue to be asked about Iraq and now increasingly about Afghanistan, those who are confronting terrorism in the world which threatens the stability of nations would argue that these too are just reasons for the military action.  In a week when Seven more British soldiers have died and mindful that this Remembrance Service is the first since the death of Marine Georgie Sparks we have to believe that what we are doing is just and necessary – or else those lives have been lost in vain.  They are all brave and courageous people who have put service before self and the right of people to be free from tyranny before their own safety.

I am always moved by the words of the Kohima Epitaph –

when you go home, tell, tell them of us and say; for your tomorrows, we gave our todays.

If I may return for a moment to Coventry Cathedral – I was struck during my visit of the way the architect, Sir Basil Spence, connected the old ruined Cathedral with the new one.  For they are not two Cathedrals – one dead, one alive – but one.  Between the two hangs a huge canopy linking them and any visit must take in both parts if we are to understand something quite profound – something which also has relevance for what we are doing today.  The West Wall of the new Cathedral isn’t a wall at all.  Walls create barriers – and I speak on the eve of the 20^th Anniversary of the pulling down of the Berlin Wall.  What you find in Coventry is a huge glass screen, etched with figures of angels.  This  makes it possible to look out towards the ruined part of the Cathedral and likewise, from that ruin to look in towards the great tapestry of Christ the King at the east end of the Cathedral.  The screen unites both parts.

It seems to me that what we are doing today in this service of Remembrance is looking, as it were, through a glass screen towards the past – but that past is a living part of our present.  Our Screen is etched with the names and faces of those who For our tomorrows, gave their todays.  So we are united with those from the past who we remember today, from Victor Adams, who died on the Somme in 1916 to Georgie Sparks who died in Afghanistan in 2008.  In a similar way, those who gave their lives in the conflicts of the 20^th century were looking towards the future.  A future which is some ways they could never be physically part but - the values they strove to uphold, the society they sought to preserve, the life of freedom and peace they wanted to give to the future generations -makes them really present here with us now.

What really unites the two Cathedrals at Coventry is the determination to work for peace and reconciliation – to put into living practice what Josefina’s statue represents – people embracing each other; reaching out to those who need love and forgiveness and healing as we repair the bridges which united humanity and which are so easily destroyed.

Our Society is often fragmented and broken.  It is always fragile but love, justice, mercy. freedom, peace and, above all, forgiveness are the building blocks for a renewed and hopeful world.  A world in which we must work for a deeper understanding and acceptance of all.  All this is at the heart of the Beatitudes which Jesus preached to us in his Gospel today.

Whatever we are here for; whatever we commemorate – unless it includes a rededication to peace and reconciliation – not only between nations but also between ourselves whenever we have hurt or judged or acted prejudicially towards others  or simply been unkind – then those who gave us our tomorrows through their sacrifice have died in vain.

Not only their sacrifice, but Our Lord’s too.

The Coventry Cross of Nails, is a symbol of the loving sacrifice of Jesus Christ in his Crucifixion whereby he drew all to the peace and reconciliation of His Father, and a symbol of those who refuse to let evil take over our world and who, with those we commemorate today, join in the fight for the triumph of goodness.  The Cross of Nails has now been sent to 160 communities throughout the world.  Today let its message take new root in our own hearts, and in our community.  Then we can truly say to those who gave their todays for our tomorrows – You did not die in vain.  We too are joining the battle for a better, more just, more peaceful and world – a world where people will be reconciled to each other.  We begin this work where we always need to begin – with ourself and with each other.

(Litany of Reconciliation)