Peace Walk through London

Fr Joe Ryan, Chair of Westminster J&P, at Edith Cavell’s statue near Trafalgar Square

Undeterred by the odd shower, more than 60 people gathered in London’s Tavistock Square on the morning of 28 June to undertake a day-long Peace Walk through the city to commemorate peace-making between 1914-2014.

Why 28 June 2014? The day marked the 100th anniversary of the assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which set off a chain of events that led to the start of World War One. It was also Armed Forces day in the UK. The walk was a counter-witness to the prevailing culture of war and militarism.

“If we want peace we have to work for peace and be encouraged and inspired by those peacemakers who have led the way over the past 100 years,” said the organisers - the J&P commissions of Brentwood, Southwark and Westminster and Pax Christi, the international Catholic movement for peace.

The walk began with a visit to the statue of Mahatma Gandhi and the memorial to Conscientious Objectors in Tavistock Square. As the group made its way to sites that commemorated Bertrand Russell, Anne Frank, Rev Dick Sheppard, Edith Cavell and the 20^th century martyrs, including Oscar Romero and Martin Luther King, at Westminster Abbey, people in the street stopped to ask what was happening and some even joined.

Pax Christi member Martin Birdseye reflected:“The evidence of human courage, perseverance and often heroic progress towards a more peaceful world is all right there, in our city… Could we find the human resources to do this for a potentially much wider public, using one of the agencies (London Walks etc)? And should not the Peace Trails booklet be featured in the Time Out London walks list?”

The walk ended at the Tibetan Peace Garden in Lambeth where Archbishop Kevin McDonald joined and offered the peace prayer which Pope Francis had used at recent meetings in Israel/Palestine. The group prayed together for the inspiration and energy to be peacemakers before making their way home with a gift of white poppy seeds which they were encouraged to plant, as a symbol of peace, in their own home or church garden.

The walk was based on Peace Trails through London by Valerie Flessati, available from Pax Christi.

www.paxchristi.org.uk