The poppy was a reminder of the day Cain took a knife to his brother, Abel, of the day John the Baptist was beheaded, and of the day Christ's blood, mixed with water, ran from his side, Father Gordon Beattie OSB said in his Remembrance Sunday address. "It reminds me of the blood shed by people like Oliver Plunkett, like Michael Collins, and others in Armagh, Belfast and Enniskillen whose blood was shed through violence."
Father Beattie began by suggesting that it must be unusual for someone like him, an English monk from the English Order of St Benedict, albeit one who carries an Irish passport, to give the address on Remembrance Sunday in St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin.
He took his text from the Second Lesson, which was given by the British ambassador, Mrs Veronica Sutherland, and was from St John 15, verses 12-18.
It began: "This is My commandment, that you love one another", and continued: "Greater love has no man than this: that he lays down his life from his friends."
Father Beattie asked, "Who has not stood on the field at Ypres and reflected on the futility of war?" He reminded the congregation that 50,000 Irishmen died then.
He recalled that when he visited a war cemetery in Singapore there were not only Singaporeans and Malaysians buried there, but people from Britain, Canada, Australia and others with names such as Murphy and O'Sullivan.
"One day we will all die," he said. "We were born into the world for that purpose. The sorrow is when death comes as a result of violence, especially when that person is young and miles away from his own country.
"Christ was born to die. He died horribly. He had to die in order to rise from the dead. He said: `This is my commandment, that you love one another'."
What happened to the hope that the first World War was the "war to end all wars", he asked. After that war came war in Abyssinia, the Spanish Civil War, the Civil War in Ireland. In recent years, personal friends of his had died in Armagh and in the war in Iraq.
Our prayers this weekend must be that all those who died were at peace, and that the world would be at peace.
But we cannot pray for our souls and our dead unless we live peace in our lives and practise love in our families, he said.
The First Lesson, from Wisdom 4, verses 7-15, was read by Mr P. Keenan, national president of the Organisation of National ExService Men and Women, and it began: "The righteous man, though he die early, shall be at rest".
Prayers of thanks for those who gave their lives both in the two World Wars and as members of the forces of the Republic in the service of justice and peace throughout the world; for help in rooting out prejudice and ridding ourselves of the spirit that gives rise to strife; for the Presidentelect and her family; for those who administer justice; and especially for the youth of today that they may never see war, were led by the Rev Dr William O'Neill of Howth Presbyterian church.