Help For Heros

It’s been another great week to pay tribute to the heroism and bravery of our armed forces. Lance Corporal Matthew Croucher received the George Cross at Buckingham Palace “for an act of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger”. On the same day crowds lined the streets of Colchester to see the 2nd battalion of the Parachute Regiment honor 15 of their own killed in Afghanistan in the past six months.

In the same spirit, troops returning home from overseas tours of duty have been marching in various towns in recent months, welcomed home by local communities; the Fusiliers had a freedom parade in Birmingham. And this week the Chancellor agreed to waive VAT on a specially recorded single for the Help the Heroes charity which is being snapped up by many younger people.

Such public recognition and appreciation of the bravery and courage of these men and women is not new – but it has certainly been transformed and re-energized to a quite considerable degree over the past year. And to that extent, people seem to have heeded the call of the Royal British Legion which last year called for the public to have a renewed covenant with our armed forces. That is certainly well on the way to being achieved.

Today, in the Christian Calendar, is All Saints Day. The Church remembers all those great saints of the Church - men and women who have also shown extraordinary courage, often in the face of great human evil and sinfulness, to pursue a path of faith and peace against all the odds: a faith in the goodness of human nature and ultimately in the love of God.

Evelyn Underhill suggests that All Saints Day is about sharing in the attributes of courage and conviction because we are members of the same human family: she writes: “ we ought all to be a little bit like them; to have a sort of family likeness and to share the family point of view.”

Between All Saints Day and Remembrance Day, there is every opportunity for reflection and thanksgiving on the virtues of amazing courage, deep faith and the kind of family likeness that we as human beings can celebrate.