麻豆约拍

Good morning. When I was听 a teenager, one of the first pieces of music I tried to teach myself on the piano was Beethoven鈥檚 Moonlight Sonata. What a haunting and beautiful piece of music! Full of shadows and brilliance, light and darkness.
听
On the night of 14th November 1940 until 6am on 15th German Luftwaffe bombers blitzed the city of Coventry. For more than ten hours, bombs fell, devastating the city and its inhabitants.

The exact number of people killed is not known, but it was over 500 with more than 4,000 homes destroyed along with the 14th century cathedral, dedicated to St Michael, burnt to a shell, leaving only the spire and some of the walls standing.

By the most horrible of ironies, the German operation was codenamed Mondscheinsonate (Moonlight Sonata) It was designed to maximise loss of life and听 damage to civilians.听 How could anyone associate the Moonlight sonata with such deadly destruction? Nazi light was truly darkness, yet, Nazi Germany was defeated. I meet many German students, and I have found we have much to love and to learn together. Former enemies have become friends. And today the new Coventry Cathedral , beside the ruins of the old, stands for reconciliation, peacemaking and faith:

Giver of Life, Creator of all that is good, beautiful and true,
forgive us for misleading ourselves and each other, calling darkness light,
Give us courage this day to overcome evil with good;
to brave death and destruction with faith in goodness and life
to find strength in love for enemies and strangers, love that is stronger than death.

Amen