When we travel in Europe we see some stunning scenery but we also see some very sad images as well, military graveyards. A couple of years ago I had the privilege of visiting Turkey and one of the excursions we had was a visit to a military graveyard in Gallipoli. The battle of Gallipoli was fought between the powers of Europe, Britian, France and Russia against the Ottoman Empire in the first world war. A lot of the soldiers  were from Australia, part of the British contingent. We all commented on the dates on the tombstones, almost eveyrone one of those soldiers was under 30 years of age. A very poignant aspect of this graveyard for me was, that one of the causualties sent an acorn back to his parents in Australia and when his parents came to visit the graveyard, they sowed the acorn in the graveyard, and it is has now developed into a beautiful oak tree. Another graveyard that is one of the world’s best-known military memorials is the Normandy American Cemetery, sited on a hill high above the coast in Normandy. These hallowed grounds preserve the remains of nearly 9,400 Americans who died during the Allied liberation of France in the Second world war. When we visit these graveyards, we often ask ourselves: why did they have to die? Because someone declared war. On other occasions when war was inevitable,  but there was always someone with the wisdom and the goodness to seek a better solution and instead of war, there was peace.  These were the peacemakers.  In the gospel today, Jesus gives some very good advice,  ‘love your enemies’, he is not asking us to be weak,  let ourselves to be trampled on;  on the contrary, he is asking us to be very strong and very wise,  Personally, we may never be involved in a war, but we do have conflicts,  at our work, in our human relaions,  and sadly even in our own families.  Sometimes we would like to get angry,  but anger is never the answer.  Our greatest example is Jesus himself,  he was the victim of a great injustice and hatred,  but he chose the way of kindness and forgiveness.  Even when we have failed, he is always there to lift us up and give us another chance.  Jeusus’ act is not an easy act to follow,  but is does give a beautiful new sense to our lives,  that we, where ever we go we too like him, will be peacemakers. We all have heard the words of Gordon Wilson echoed across the world in 1987, just hours after his 20-year-old daughter Marie, was killed in an IRA bomb in Enniskillen.  ‘I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge. Dirty sort of talk is not going to bring her back to life. She’s in heaven and we shall meet again. I will pray for these men tonight and every night.’ I would like to finish with a prayer that was found by the body of a dead youth in Ravensbruck concentration camp. It reads: “O lord, remember not only the men and women of goodwill but also those of ill-will. Do not remember all the suffering they inflicted on us; remember the fruits we have borne thanks to this suffering – our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, our greatness of heart and when they come to judgement let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.”