Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

Armistice Day was eleven days ago, an occasion which was supposed to commemorate the end not only of WWI, but all wars. We have just celebrated Christ the King Sunday, a Holy Day created in hopes that every Christian in every nation would come to understand that we are citizens first and foremost citizens of the country ruled by the Prince of Peace... and by such understanding mobilize against any call for war by any country. Amidst these points of remembrance I want us to turn our hearts back to the trenches of World War One, to the Somme Valley, where the German soldiers are advancing in April of 1918.

Paddie and Jack are two lads from Oxford. One just turned twenty, the other a few months behind. They had joined the officer's training corps with the bright eyes of young men following Horace's adage that it is sweet and good to die for one's country and were now confronting the actual horrors of war. Unsure of how long they might live, if either would return to where they grew up or see their family again... they made a pact. Each promising to take up the family responsibilities of the other should one survive and the other not. A moment resonating with that point in the crucifixion where Jesus looks down at Mary and John and says "mother behold your son" and "son behold your mother." Jack would make it back to Oxford, Paddie did not.

Jack, in hospital, wrote to Paddie's mother. They had met a few times before the war and she began to visit him as he recuperated. She eventually invited him to move into her family house when he continued his studies at Oxford. Jack would become part of the family and be a second son to Paddie's mother until her death. It was in this house, the house of his friend Paddie who died in the trenches, that Jack would live in as he completed his studies, began to teach at Oxford, and wrote numerous books. There is a good chance you have read one or two... for while known as Jack to his friends most of us know him not by his nickname but as Clive Staples Lewis.

We have him on our calendar of saints on account of his writing and work as an evangelist. I want to suggest his commemoration is to be found more in the tumult of the war and promises kept to be family for those who grieve. Each of us has the opportunity to be such family, my CS Lewis' work call us to show similar support for all in need and shine forth the light of Christ.

Pax,

—Ben