Hiroshima Day prayers at Westminster Cathedral

Members of Pax Christi and Westminster J&P were joined by passers-by in prayers for peace on Monday, to mark the 73rd anniversary of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

During the prayers this poem by Fr Rob Edaile was read.

Transfigured and Transfixed

Noon in Galilee, Dawn by the Japanese sea.
The Spirit hovers silently, while the Enola Gay drones away.
Four men on a mountain top; 350,000 down in the valley.
The Son of Man and a bomb Christened 'Little Boy'.
Silently the cloud descends; just as silently a parachute unfurls.
Four men see nothing but Jesus, while 75,000 are never seen again.
Whiter than any new bleached cloth the face of Christ,
brighter than a thousand suns the flash.

"This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him."
This is the nuclear age, be very afraid.
And the clouds weep their atomic rain.
Christ transfigured and the world transfixed,
the dawning of the light of Christ,
the beginning of the nuclear winter.
The date of both - August 6.

Peace campaigners will be returning on Thursday. Nagasaki Day, with an stall in the Piazza, and the annual ecumenical service in the Cathedral crypt to remember Blessed Franz Jaegerstaetter, executed in 1945 for refusing to serve in Hitler's army, at 6.30pm.

Dr Ray Towey a medical missionary and peace activist, will be speaking during Thursday's event.

After the service there will be procession to the Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park and the Floating Lantern ceremony to commemorate the lives lost in Nagasaki.

For more information see: www.paxchristi.org.uk