Retired GP from Devon shares clergy father's WW2 VE Day sermon

A retired GP and churchwarden from Devon whose father was Vicar of Crediton during World War Two has shared the handwritten sermon he wrote to celebrate VE Day ahead of the 80th anniversary on 8 May.

Jane Richards, 91, was 11 in 1945, when Victory in Europe Day, marking the official end of the Second World War in Europe, was declared on 8 May, 1945. Her father, the Rev'd Francis Richards, had been a minor Canon at St Paul's Cathedral during the London blitz and was on fire warden duty in the dome of the cathedral the night a bomb landed on the steps and bounced down them.

In 1940, he moved to become Vicar of Crediton, to provide a safer environment for his growing family. Jane said he used to write each of his sermons by hand in a series of notebooks he kept in alphabetical order. She inherited the notebooks when he died and was recently showing one of them to the Archdeacon of Exeter, when it fell open to his sermon of 13 May 1945.

It starts with the words "During this past week great events have come to a final issue, and we have celebrated the day of victory in Europe to which we had long been looking forward. No doubt you have all been reading reviews of the progress of the war through these years in your newspapers, and I need not quote instances here to remind you how often or for how long, the prospect of victory seemed remote and unattainable, and many of us lived through moments when we wondered whether we ourselves should be spared to see it come to pass."

Rev'd Richards also acknowledges in his sermon that it was a bittersweet victory for many people: "Our Lord came back with wounds in His hands and feet and side – let that not be forgotten by those who have come to the end of this German war wondering whether they can or ought to rejoice, because there has been so much sorrow; our Lord’s experience is the same – the joy that was set before him was only reached through death and wounds."

Sunday, 13 May, 1945, was the Sunday after Ascension day and Jane said she was particularly struck by the parallels her father drew between VE Day and Jesus' Ascension into heaven after his resurrection. She said: "I think that was a very prescient comment to make and one that people could dwell on."

Jane also said she could clearly remember living in Crediton during the war: "The bombing of Exeter in 1942 is very clearly etched on my memory, because it was a Sunday night and we had to get out. One bomb was dropped, and all our windows fell in. Daddy was up in the tower of Crediton church on watch and realised. Mama got us in a pram and pushed us across the playing field to the local doctor's, who was a friend."

Rev'd Richard's sermon ends: "Our victory in Europe is won, but there is a long job ahead to make liberty available again to everybody. But can’t you see it is a job after God‘s own heart, since he himself is doing the same thing? If God is with us, in the fight, in the sorrow, in the victory, in the rejoicing, in the reconstruction – if God is with us, who can be against us?"

Jane said if her father were here today his reflections on the 80th anniversary of VE Day would probably be to "Keep the faith, don't doom. Remember, Christ is there all the time for us. Then, as appropriate at that time and now, in this rather different, shifting sort of time. He is always there, and this was an example of it."

Sermon for Sunday after Ascension
Thanksgiving for Victory in Europe May 13, 1945
Rev'd Francis Richards, Holy Cross Church, Crediton

During this past week great events have come to a final issue, and we have celebrated the day of victory in Europe to which we had long been looking forward. No doubt you have all been reading reviews of the progress of the war through these years in your newspapers, and I need not quote instances here to remind you how often or for how long, the prospect of victory
seemed remote and unattainable, and many of us lived through moments when we wondered whether we ourselves should be spared to see it come to pass. Anxiety has been a constant companion for years to many of you. Anxiety over someone you love; the anxiety in some cases has ended in grief and bereavement. There have been so many deprivations too, normal
pursuits that were forbidden or impossible, shortages of what we have become accustomed to regard as daily necessities; all this we have been putting up with for years, waiting and hoping for the end, looking forward to the day and saying to each other “never mind it’s going to end someday” - at last, here we are, it has ended! Personally I find it difficult to believe even now.

I dare say you do too, we have hoped for it so much that we have become more accustomed to the hoping than to the enjoying and it takes time to adjust ourselves. This afternoon there is to be a big public Thanksgiving, and you have already attended the service on VE day itself to thank Almighty God – so that I do not need to exhort you on the subject of being grateful that war in Europe is over.
But I expect it will not have escaped you, but in this week which brought us the great event of our times, there was also commemorated an event for which the adjective ‘great’ is too small, an event not of our times, but of all time, an eternal event that affects all mankind. Do you suppose it was chance that brought VE day into the same week as Ascension Day? I do not think it was, but whatever anyone may think about that, the resemblances which connect the two events are no less remarkable. One is a type of the other. Ascension Day was the day our Lord had been looking forward to for years, the faith that He finally held to, that that day would eventually come, sustained Him through all the worst moments of His earthly career. He knew the griefs of bereavement, the betrayals and forsaking of friends that human life abounds in.
His experience of shortage and deprivation was greater and deeper than ours could ever be, for He who was Lord of heaven and earth laid aside all His divine prerogative in order to come down and fight the battle against evil for mankind. We might almost say with all reverence, that he “existed” in the human race to fight for us. And how far off the end must’ve seemed
sometimes – when His chosen apostles were so stupid and unable to see what His mission meant, when the people of his own hometown turned against him, when crowds followed him only for the excitement of watching His miracles. But there was a day coming, a day of joy, and for that joy that was set before him, he endured. Before that day could come however, there
was the most the sorrowful and grievous happening of all. His death upon the cross. So our Lord came to his V-Day triumphant through sadness and pain, just as we do. He arrived back in heaven on Ascension day, as a victor it is true, having deserved
all a congratulation of the courts of heaven, but for all that, so different from what he was when He left heaven and came down to earth, for He came back with wounds in His hands and feet and side – let that not be forgotten by those who have come to the end of this German war wondering whether they can or ought to rejoice, because there has been so much sorrow; our
Lord’s experience is the same – the joy that was set before him was only reached through death and wounds, and yet because the right cause had been vindicated there was reason for great joy.

But our Lord still goes with us all the way – it’s wonderful how His experience always matches ours. After His ascension, the victory was His, certainly, but there was still the whole human race to re-educate and the benefits of the victory to be made available to them, and themselves to be made fit to receive those benefits. It has been a long job and it is still going on, with the Church doing the work under his direction.
Our victory in Europe is won, but there is a long job ahead to make liberty available again to everybody. But can’t you see it is a job after God‘s own heart, since he himself is doing the same thing? If God is with us, in the fight, in the sorrow, in the victory, in the rejoicing, in the reconstruction – if God is with us, who can be against us?