Homily Remembrance Sunday 8 November 2026
Remembrance Sunday: We Remember
It is a sad fact that there hasn’t been a single day since the birth of the Prince of Peace, over two thousand years ago, without some kind of war on earth—political, tribal, religious, territorial, civil, regional and global wars.
We’ve had a “seven-day” war, a “thousand-day” war and a “hundred-year” war. Some wars have cost the lives of a handful of people while others have taken the lives of tens of millions. Overall, it appears the very nature of humankind is to wage war. Referring to World War 1, the hopeful phrase “War to End All Wars” was a short-lived misnomer.
Remembrance Sunday falls on the Sunday nearest November 11th when the First World War ended in 1918. Today we try to remember. We remember the victims of war and all those who have died to help bring freedom and to help make the world a better place to live in. But today is also a stark reminder that our world is deeply broken and divided — because of human violence.
For the Christian, Remembrance Day also presents a unique opportunity for us to meditate on the way of peace. God calls us to look to Jesus, who is the Prince of Peace.
In the life and teachings of Jesus, we see that God establishes peace in his world in an unconventional way. Jesus does not enter into physical battle in order to defeat the enemies of God. Instead, Jesus chooses the way of non-violence. Jesus lays down his life and dies at the hand of God’s enemies in order to defeat evil. Only then does God raise Jesus from the dead in the victory over sin and death.
In the person of Jesus, we see the perfect example of humble obedience, sacrificial love, and life-giving peace.
With this in mind, Jesus’ words in John 20.21 come into sharp focus: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” We are God’s sent ones, ambassadors for Christ, commissioned by the Holy Spirit to announce the good news of God’s peaceable kingdom. But what is more, we are called to embody God’s peace in the world. God is leading us to be his peacemakers.
So, on this day of “remembrance” let us seize the opportunity. Let us prayerfully take to heart the radical message of the Prince of Peace and follow his way of reconciling love. Let us discern, together, the ways in which God is calling us to be peacemakers in his world.
In one of his sermons, Martin Luther King Jr., proclaimed: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction... The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
Today we especially ‘remember’ those who have given their lives through war in service of our country—not to glorify war but to remember the costs of war.
The memories we recall this Remembrance Sunday should spur us forward in the search for true harmony and peace throughout the world. As the Lord commanded the apostles to “Do this in memory of me” we gather this day praying for the graces of the great sacrifice of Calvary to engulf the whole world that we may live in the harmony for which Christ prayed; and to our fallen we say, “We will remember them”.
