By Rev Fiona Bennett (From Seeds June – July 2025)
In May this year, I joined the Community of the Cross of Nails (CCN) for a retreat on Lindisfarne.
Following the destruction of Coventry Cathedral during the bombing of the city in November 1940, Provost Dick Howard made a commitment not to call for revenge, but to forgive and be reconciled. He declared that when the war was over, we should work with those who had become our enemies ‘to build a kinder, more Christ-like world’.
The words ‘Father Forgive’, which Jesus spoke from the cross, were inscribed on one wall of the cathedral’s ruined chancel. Two charred beams which fell in the shape of a cross were bound and placed behind an altar of rubble. Medieval roof nails were formed into crosses that were presented to churches in German cities such as Kiel, Dresden and Berlin.
By the 1970s, this vision of transforming enemies into friends had spread to other areas of conflict, and in 1974 the Community of the Cross of Nails was formed. CCN has a Litany of Reconciliation which is shared every Friday at 12pm in the cathedral, and people are invited to join in from across the world.
On the retreat, CCN was exploring gender identity and language in the litany, which seems to me to be a significant implementation of incarnating the spirit of the litany. There is work to be done. However, even pre-renewal of language, for a prayer written in 1958 it strikes me as a profoundly significant and needed litany to be prayed and acted upon in our world today. The words in brackets are my suggested expansions of the language.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class, [gender from gender], Father [Holy One] Forgive.
The covetous desires of people and nations to possess what is not their own, Father Forgive.
The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth, Father Forgive.
Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others, Father Forgive.
Our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the homeless, the refugee, Father Forgive.
The lust which dishonours the bodies of men, women and children, [The abuse which dishonours bodies], Father Forgive.
The pride which leads us to trust in ourselves and not in God, Father Forgive.