What will you hear during the two minutes’ silence to be observed across St Albans and district and around the country this Sunday at 11 o’clock?

Hopefully, very little. Hopefully, women and men will stop what they are doing and take a moment to reflect and remember.

At the historic lych gate by St Leonard’s Church, Sandridge, people will gather as they have gathered for many, many years. In recent times, we have seen the numbers increase as people come to remember those lost in a growing number of wars.

What will be going on inside our minds during the silence?

If we are religious, then perhaps we will be praying – praying for peace in our troubled world. Others may be remembering relatives or friends lost in the conflicts over the past hundred years, and recalling their sacrifice.

But maybe, just maybe, we will be hearing a still small voice speaking to us and saying ‘Never again.’

Probably the best way that any of us can honour the lives and memories of those killed in war is to commit to peace.

And peace, not as the absence of fighting, but as a just way of living where all people are valued. A peace where the powerful do not seek to exploit the weak. A peace with justice.

A peace where children and the elderly are not fleeing their homes in a desperate hunt for safety.

Let’s work for peace, and pray that it would begin with each of us.