VICAR

Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I trust that You are well and healthy and that You have found some joy in the fact that your gardens/fields are well-soaked from recent showers.

I know many of You are sickened by recent developments in Afghanistan. After such sacrifice from our soldiers it seems that their efforts were in vain. To see evil, in the form of the Taliban, controlling the country once again is a kick in the guts. This week please reserve some of your prayers for the innocents in Afghanistan, families of our military personnel who lost their lives there, and for those men and women injured in the campaign.

We should not be surprised to see evil once more rear its ugly head:

Matthew 5:45

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh. his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

At times like these let us also remember the words of St Augustine:

For the good man is not puffed up by worldly goods, nor broken by worldly calamity. But the bad man is punished in temporal losses, because he is corrupted by temporal gains. Or for another reason He would have good and evil common to both sorts of men, that good things might not be sought with vehement desire, when they were enjoyed even by the wicked; nor the evil things shamefully avoided, when even the righteous are afflicted by them.

It is not as if We can dispel evil from this world however hard We try. This does not mean that We should not try, simply that We should not be surprised by hideous turns of events. All We can do is ask our leaders to deliver pragmatic solutions and to spend time praying for better outcomes than those which We fear. It may be that in the future We must deliver a just war to Afghanistan, but it is too early to judge.

I wish You a good week ahead and a peaceful Sunday. May God be with You all. God Bless.

All-loving God, Your hands have fashioned every lovely corner of this treasured planet, and the beautiful land of Afghanistan is as precious as every other place Your children call ‘home’. By its rivers and mountains, its fields and gardens, its busy towns and ancient villages, it is the heart’s desire of its people and the place where their lives and loves are nurtured.

We grieve today with those who grieve over Afghanistan, the people who call it home indeed, the people exiled or suddenly having to leave, and the men and women from other countries who have made sacrifices in recent years in the cause of that country’s future.

We remember with renewed sadness the loss of lives of military personnel during the years of this country’s involvement in Afghanistan, conscious of the questions that must today be troubling the minds of those in our community who were bereaved, those who were wounded on operations, and those who were forever changed by experiences suffered there.

We pray for peace, dignity, freedom and confidence for the men, women and children of Afghanistan; for courage, vision and generosity within the international community responding to such need; and for tranquility of mind among our own Service community and its wider family.

In the name of Jesus Christ, the peace-giver, we pray, AMEN.