"We announce that we are one and we are free"
Uniting Church Defence Force Chaplains share this beautiful reflection for ANZAC Day
April 24, 2025
Reflection prepared for ANZAC Day 2025 by Rev Kaye Ronalds, Convenor of the Uniting Church Defence Force Chaplains Committee, and Navy Chaplain Rev Andrew Watters. Read by Australian Defence Force Chaplain Rev Santina Waugh (Army).
There are 35 Uniting Church chaplains serving in the Australian Defence Force.
In the soft dawn light of Anzac Day around Australia communities will be gathering. People pause in the quietness hearing the kookaburras announcing the arrival of a new day. Moments of reflection, words to chew over, and an address delivered by a young school leader or military member or a representative from local government.
As the Last Post slices through the air a magpie sings to its own score. From under the southern cross we sing the National Anthem and pray that the boundless plains ravaged by drought and floods and fire will have room for First and Second peoples. We announce that we are one and we are free.
We think of those who volunteered to travel across the sea to lend their body to the fight where adventure and loyalty was traded for heat and dust, and blood and mud. We remember those who risked violent and brutal death in the fury of naval and air battle or the grasping waters of the deep oceans. We are challenged to think of the bereaved who wondered how the sacrifice of their loved one made any difference to anyone’s freedom.
We remember the families that had whole branches lopped off. We pray for the communities who endured losses and 'made do' and 'carried on' in spite of broken hearts or lived out their lives clasping on to a hope that one who was 'missing' might still yet be found.
"We pray for a better way to resolve conflict and to distribute wealth and land and power. We pray for political leaders who make decisions and military members who must carry them out."
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We pray for people who have returned home carrying the physical, emotional and spiritual scars and for their families who share the burdens. We honour the wives, husbands and children whose own lives were scarred by the demons of 'the veteran.'
We pray for Chaplains, counsellors, medical professionals and all who work together to restore wholeness and hope.
Even now around the world military personnel and civilians experience death and devastation, agony and heartbreak. We pray for a better way to resolve conflict and to distribute wealth and land and power. We pray for political leaders who make decisions and military members who must carry them out.
On ANZAC Day we commemorate the people who have died and the generations of their family who continue to remember the ones who did not come home. We pray for the families of the people who have died after returning home. In particular, we ask you to hold safe those who believed dying was better than living, and their families who must live on in the consequences of their decision. We remember the people who have died in recent conflicts or training accidents or operations.
May we find comfort in Jesus, the Risen Crucified Lord, in whom we experience the relief of forgiveness, the possibility of reconciliation and the hope of life in all its fullness. Amen.
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