ANZAC DAY 2026

Welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral.

There are moments in the life of a nation when memory becomes almost sacred.
ANZAC Day is one of those moments.

This week, The Mercury listed all the ANZAC Day services. As well the ceremonies and parades later in the day, I noted how many dawn services were held. All across Australia and at the sacred sites in France and Turkey, we gather at dawn. We stand in silence. We listen for the bugle. We watch the light slowly break over the horizon. There is something deeply moving in that ritual—something that reaches beyond words. The eternal flame burns. The names are spoken. The white crosses stand in silent rows. And hymns like ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ and ‘Abide with Me’ rise, not from a place of performance, but from a place of reverence.

It is striking, isn’t it, that in a society that often distances itself from faith, these are the moments when it instinctively reaches back to the language of faith—to symbol, to silence, to sacrifice, and hope beyond death.

In truth, ANZAC Day is as close as our secular culture comes to the great symbols of the Easter Vigil and the Easter season itself.

At the Easter Vigil, we begin in darkness. A flame is lit. Names are remembered. Stories are told—not to glorify suffering, but to proclaim that suffering does not have the final word. Light breaks into darkness. Life emerges from death.

So too, at dawn on ANZAC Day, people gather in the half-light, remembering those who went into darkness on our behalf.

However, memory alone is not enough. Memory must be interpreted. And here, the voice of my predecessor, Archbishop Guilford Young, speaks to us with remarkable clarity.

Reflecting on Gallipoli, he wrote with disarming honesty that it was “a mistake from the start,” marked by “enormous human cost.” Yet, he observed something uniquely Australian: “We have made a day of defeat our day of national pride.”

Why would a nation do that?

Because what is honoured is courage.

Not the romance of war, but what Archbishop Young called “dogged perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds.”

We honour sacrifice.

Archbishop Young does not allow us to stop there. He offers a warning—one that is as urgent today as it was then:
“May God save us from the tragedy of spending our courage on false ends.”

That is a sobering thought.

You see, courage, by itself, is not enough. Courage must be rightly directed. Sacrifice must be rightly ordered. Otherwise, even the noblest of human qualities can be misused.

This is where the Gospel and our faith address ANZAC Day with unmistakable authority.

Jesus says: “A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.”

Those words echo through every war memorial, every white cross, every red poppy, every story of service. They give voice to what we instinctively recognise as noble and true.

The Gospel goes further: telling us that sacrifice finds its meaning not simply in the act of giving one’s life, but in the love for which it is given—and ultimately, in the God who receives it.

At every ANZAC service we hear the phrase, “lest we forget.”
Lest we forget those who served.
Lest we forget the cost of war.
Lest we forget the love that was shown.

For us Catholic Christians, there is something even deeper:
Lest we forget the redemption that is ours in Christ.
Lest we forget that death does not have the final word.
Lest we forget that Christ is the cornerstone—the one who gathers all sacrifice into himself.

At the altar, memory becomes something more than remembrance.

The same Christ who laid down his life out of love is made present. The same Christ whom Archbishop Young called “the conqueror of death” is entrusted with those we remember today.

And so, the white crosses that mark the fallen find their deepest meaning in the Cross of Christ.
The eternal flame finds its fulfilment in the light that no darkness can overcome.
The dawn service finds its completion on the morning of resurrection.

What ANZAC Day gestures towards, Easter proclaims, viz., that love is stronger than death, that sacrifice is not lost and that those who have died are not abandoned.

As war rages in the middle East, in the Ukraine and in other parts of the world, on this ANZAC day, we do not glorify war. We honour courage, we remember sacrifice, and we pray for peace.

In the end, the deepest ANZAC legacy is not found in the force of arms, but in what Archbishop Young called a “disciplined conscience,” a rightly ordered sacrifice, and a refusal to let hatred decide who we become.

May those we remember this day rest in peace.
May we who remember them live with integrity.
And may Christ, the risen Lord, bring us all from the darkness into his marvellous light.

Most Rev. Anthony J. Ireland
Archbishop of Hobart
25 April 2026