Reflections for King’s-Edgehill School Cadet Church Parade, 2025
admin | 16 April 2025In the Shadows of the Cross
Reflections for the Church Parade at Christ Church on Wednesday in Holy Week,
(Tenebrae), April 16th, 2025
In the western Christian traditions, this week is Holy Week and brings us to Easter. Unusually, and somewhat paradoxically, it was also the week in which there was the Annual Cadet Church Parade of the 254 King’s-Edgehill Cadet Corps at Christ Church. What follows are the reflections read by students, including two from Maasland College in Oss, Netherlands, who are visiting the School. Students from our Corps have participated in their commemorations of the liberation of the Netherlands. It is lovely to have students from Oss with us. The reflections focus on aspects of the School’s history and purpose as seen ‘in the shadows of the Cross’.
Everyone loves a parade! But what kind of parade? There are all kinds of parades: parades of military might and power, parades of cultural pride and social identities – from St. Patrick’s Day Parades to Pride Parades, parades of protest and advocacy, parades of national celebrations and anniversaries, parades of solemn mourning and remembrance, parades of religion and faith. What kind of parade is our parade? Is it about calling attention to ourselves? ‘Look at us looking at you looking at us?’ That would be merely self-referential. Is it not something more that reminds us of the principles of the School and its connection both to the immediate community and the wider world?
The School is a Corps on parade today. A corps is a body, a living body, not a corpse. Our parade bears witness to the ideals of service and sacrifice that belong to the history and purpose of the School. This is expressed in the founding mottoes of King’s and Edgehill: Deo Legi Regi Gregi and Fideliter, ‘For God, for the Law, for the King, for the People,’ and ‘Faithfulness.’ Together they provide a counter to the culture of privilege and self-interest. They promote the qualities of commitment to the good of one another and to the ideals of thinking and living beyond oneself.
This is the 144th year of the 254 King’s-Edgehill Cadet Corps in the 238th year of the School. Students and faculty of King’s and Edgehill have been part of many of the defining struggles of the 19th and 20th centuries in many different places all over the world: Egypt in 1801, the War of 1812-1814 with the USA, the 1815 Battle of Waterloo in Belgium, the 1837-1838 Rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada, the 1854-1855 Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the 1885 Riel Rebellion in Western Canada, the Boer War of 1899-1902 in South Africa, the Great War, World War I of 1914-1918, and, subsequently, World War II in 1939-1945, the 1951-1953 Korean War with UN Forces, and the Vietnam War of 1955-1975. Quite a litany of wars in many different parts of the globe and with respect to various conflicts and divisions! Students from the School, men and women, continue to serve in the Canadian Forces to this day, and in other militaries as well. The shadows of the darkness of war have been a constant and continuing feature of our School’s history and our global world, it seems.
