ARCHBISHOP SENTAMU OF YORK has given up a planned holiday in Austria this week. The “Watchman for the North” will, instead, “camp out” in York Minster calling men and women of goodwill, everywhere, to join him in prayer and in fasting for peace …

“We have an opportunity to stand up and be counted with those in Israel, Lebanon and Palestine and all over the world who seek after Peace. This is what this week will be about, people coming together for one purpose alone – to pray for peace in our troubled world and to pray especially for the Middle East”.

Many will want to heed the Archbishop’s call – and bless his example. And I shall pray that York Minster will be only one amongst many centres of focused and purposeful gathering in the coming week. May temples, synagogues, mosques, churches, schools, workplaces and homes throughout the land be filled with peoples bound by common purpose. Filled with peoples united by their conscious longing for the peace that can only be granted to any of us – individuals or nations – by something or someone quite BEYOND ourselves and our limited horizons and aspirations.

And may that great and diverse gathering “for one purpose alone” renew in all of us a sense of our common brotherhood and sisterhood in the family of our humanity. May we remember that the Creator of the World hears the cry of the poor, of the little ones, of the bewildered and the dispossessed. May we remember that God bears no ill will or ill intent for ANY child of his making. May the Watchman for the North inspire each of us to be watchwomen and watchmen for the very food of our continued presence in this world: a united humanity. Peace. Peace. Peace.