We are grateful to the Rev Amy Richter for her welcome on behalf of the Rector, Fr. It is especially good and appropriate that the President of this Eucharist is the diocesan bishop Bill Persell. I have to admit that I never find it easy to preach about the Transfiguration of Christ. You will know what I mean - a mere 55 years ago on August 6th 1945 the war came to a terrible end when an atom bomb took the heart out of Hiroshima.
Eyewitnesses speak of the blinding light and the terrible heat.
Two days later another atom bomb destroyed Nagasaki. In total, several hundreds of thousands of people perished in those two bombings. The effect was to bring to an end the second world war and no doubt saved the lives of many, many thousands. We recall going to Nagasaki ten years ago and seeing the outline of a man's body on a wall. When the bomb exploded, the man who had been standing a little distance away from the epicentre of the explosion, was immediately vaporised leaving just the vivid outline sharply and terribly defined on the wall.