Acts of Witness on Ash Wednesday

I was chatting this week to a young person about Lent, and about Ash Wednesday in particular. He understood prayer and fasting but was surprised that an element of it was "almsgiving". I soon realised he thought I was saying "armsgiving." Of course, the word "almsgiving" is archaic and I quickly explained that the Church certainly does not support "armsgiving," but Prayer, Fasting and Charity to the needy.

In fact, though, Catholic peacemakers remind us annually that Ash Wednesday highlights more than this.

This year a national zoom prayer for peace, organised by Pax Christi England and Wales and Christian CND, attracted around 100 participants on the evening of Ash Wednesday.

Participants came from the dioceses of Birmingham, Hallam, Leeds, Middlesbrough, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Shrewsbury and Westminster, plus Assumption Sisters and other religious orders and missionaries, such as the Columbans. Pax Christi members from Bosnia, Germany, Uruguay and Kenya, joined in.

The prayer focused on a call to Repentance, with the image on screens of a peace banner 'No Faith in Trident' and an acknowledgment that humanity "is destroying and squandering the resources of the Earth." Romans 12 was read out, with the lines, "'Never pay back evil with more evil….. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone."

There was also a call to Lamentation, where participants held up images and names of people and places they wanted to pray for. These included children living in the shadow of war in Ukraine and the West Bank, and the destruction of the beauty of a number of countries, including Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. There was a reminder of the cost to life of the UK's commitment to war and death through military spending.

Change of Heart was the third theme, urging moves away from a culture of death towards a culture of life. This would include a halt to wasting the resources of Planet Earth. Special prayers for Ukraine were spurred by words of Pope Francis in recent days as he lobbies for peace as well as praying for it. Bruce Kent, who handed a letter from CND into the Russian Embassy two days earlier opposing all military action, feared hearing politicians speak about the possible use of nuclear weapons. "That would catastrophic," he warned.

Then a focus on Thanksgiving where Sr Wamuyu Teresia Wachira, Co-President of Pax Christi International, spoke from Kenya about Pax Christi being "a sign of hope in the world" even though members can often feel like they are "crying in the wilderness". She was proud that Pax Christi is showing a different path to that of violence; instead, choosing a path of peace, justice, inequality and respect for the natural world.

The service followed a full day of in-person Pax Christi witness events - usually in the rain - in Coventry, Leeds, Liverpool and London. Pax Christi Scotland prayed for peace at the South Gate of Faslane nuclear base in Scotland.

I joined around 30 people outside the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, where military violence is planned. We stood before the front entrance of the building and repented, "the moral blindness of our nuclear intentions." Fr Rob Esdaile, read a passage from the writings of Archbishop John Wester who said: "we are heading towards total destruction unless we learn the things that make for peace."

Ann Farr reported that after a very "meaningful" service in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, a group presented a letter to city officials urging divestment of pension funds from companies involved in arms trading or nuclear weapons.

Nan Saeki from York reported that thousands of school children in the city demonstrated solidarity with the people of Ukraine on Ash Wednesday by creating a human prayer chain for peace between the Bar Convent and York Minster. The event was thought up by pupils at All Saints RC School in South Bank and staff there have helped coordinate efforts with schools across the city.

The online service suggested that we have responsibilities: to repent war policies, to name them as challenges to the Gospel, and to invite the government to turn away from a military security which is based on threat and fear towards a security based on cooperation, understanding and human rights. Participants were reminded that Ash Wednesday is a serious call to conversion and nonviolence.

LINKS

Pax Christi - https://paxchristi.org.uk/

Christian CND - https://christiancnd.org.uk/

Archbishop John Wester's Pastoral Letter - https://archdiosf.org/living-in-the-light-of-christs-peace