[CS-FSLUG] Pray for our nation

[Ed Hurst]

Frank Bax wrote:
> Fred A. Miller wrote:
>> Did you know that during WWII, an advisor to Churchill 
>> organized a group of people to drop what they were doing 
>> every day at a prescribed hour for one minute to 
>> collectively pray for the safety of England, its people 
>> and peace? 
> 
> This sounds suspiciously like another urban legend.  Has anyone proven 
> this claim?

This time it appears to be partially true. The ceremonial minute of
prayer was a remembrance for the dead.

   http://www.rsa.org.nz/remem/rsa_hist_ceremony.html

------
A Remarkable Story

The widespread observance of a ceremony of silence at 9 p.m. in New
Zealand actually dates from the Second World War and the story of its
origin is a remarkable one. It begins not during the Second World War,
however, but the First World War. In early December 1917, in the
mountains around Jerusalem, two British Army officers were discussing
the war and its probable aftermath on the eve of a battle. One of them,
in a premonition of his death, requested his fellow officer to remember
him and the millions of others who would die during the War: "Lend us a
moment of it [your time] every day and through your silence is greater
than you know". The following day the speaker, as he had foretold, was
killed. His companion, Major W. Tudor Pole, never forgot his comrade’s
last request and at the outbreak of the Second World War campaigned
tirelessly to implement a daily observance of silent prayer.


The "Big Ben Silent Minute"

Members of the so-called ‘Big Ben Movement’, with the support of Winston
Churchill, took up Tudor Pole's cause and successfully campaigned for
the reinstatement of the broadcast of Big Ben’s chimes at 9 p.m. on the
BBC as an appropriate observance (the chimes had been replaced by the
Greenwich Time Signal at the outbreak of the war). The nine o’clock
chimes, which lasted a minute, were publicised as a Minute of Silent
Prayer and Rededication prior to the first airing on Armistice Sunday,
10 November 1940. The ‘Big Ben Silent Minute’, as it was known, became a
source of inspiration not only in Britain but also throughout the empire.

-- 
Ed Hurst
------------
Associate Editor, Open for Business: http://ofb.biz/
Applied Bible - http://soulkiln.org/
Kiln of the Soul - http://soulkiln.blogspot.com/