ANZAC DAY 2023 - A day we commemorate the sacrifice of those who fought for the freedom of Aotearoa and our way of life. We are so grateful to be able to send out girls to represent SCC at the Wellington dawn wreath-laying ceremony and the National Commemoration. National Commemoration at Pukeahu our Head Students Ella Cressford and Maia Bouras represented the College. Khushi and Bianca represented St Cath's at this morning's Citizens' Wreath Laying Ceremony at the Cenotaph

I share a part of a reflection from  Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ of Australia

At Anzac Day this year, war is more than a distant memory. Each day, the media carry stories of the war in Ukraine and speculation about the possibility of conflict with China. It has been a time for the laying in of weapons, the making of plans and the beating of drums.

The war in Ukraine has also brought home to us the costs of war on people whose lives were much like our own before war came to them. We hear of people killed daily in bombings and see pictures of refugees driven from their homes. A battle, relatively unimportant in strategic terms, continues to take thousands of lives, its value estimated by the relative number of soldiers killed and wounded on the other side. The people who are the counters in this calculus are young men on both sides, many conscripted, many longing for a peaceful life, with parents, brothers and sisters, wives and fiancées. This war, like most others, will end in a negotiated settlement, in a peace of sorts, with embitterment, with some pride, with towns and cities to be rebuilt, with much impoverishment and with much grief. The war may not be lost. But in human terms, it is never won.

Anzac Day is rightly a day in which we remember the people who were affected by a battle in Turkey over a hundred years ago and people who were affected by later wars 

Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ writes for Jesuit Communications and Jesuit Social Services.

Holy and Gracious God

We pray for the people of the Ukraine, for their country and their leader.

We pray for all those who are afraid; that your everlasting arms hold them in this time of great fear.

We pray for all those who have the power over life and death; that they will choose for all people life, and life in all its fullness.

We pray for those who choose war; that they will remember that you direct your people to turn our swords into ploughshares and seek for peace.

We pray for leaders on the world stage; that they are inspired by the wisdom and courage of Christ.

Above all, Lord, today we pray for peace in Ukraine.

And we ask this in the name of your blessed Son.

Lord have mercy.

Amen