Skip to main content

Kōrero: Death and dying

Holy communion on the battlefield, 1917

Holy communion on the battlefield, 1917

A Catholic priest offers holy communion to soldiers near the firing line on the Messines ridge in Belgium, 1917. For these soldiers it was important to participate in communion before going into battle. The communion ritual or eucharist entails eating bread (or a wafer) and drinking wine that symbolise the body and blood of Jesus Christ. For Christians this sacrament is one of the key rituals that connects human beings and God, and therefore is appropriate when someone is dying or anticipating death, as these soldiers did on the battle field during the First World War.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Alexander Turnbull Library, Royal New Zealand Returned and Services' Association Collection

Reference: 1/2-012781-G

by Henry Armytage Sanders

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Ruth McManus rāua ko Rosemary Du Plessis, Death and dying – Dying and bereavement, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/photograph/30371/holy-communion-on-the-battlefield-1917 (accessed 25 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Ruth McManus rāua ko Rosemary Du Plessis, i tāngia i te 3 May 2011, updated 1 November 2023.

Comments

Russell holland
01 July 2024
The Eucharist is not a symbol of the body and blood of Christ. It is the actual body and blood of Christ as taught by the Holy Catholic Church and believed by faithful Catholics of the church.