Yesterday, the Duke of Cambridge joined Prime Minister Theresa May and other diplomats at the Manchester Cathedral service to honour the 22 people who were killed last year.
The bombing at the Manchester Arena took place on 22 May 2017 at the end of an Ariana Grande concert.
Hundreds gathered in the Cathedral Gardens yesterday to remember those lost. Screens played the service and showed pictures of those 22 who died.
Many spoke during the service, including the Dean of Manchester who noted that “those whose lives were lost and those whose lives have been changed forever”.
Very Reverend Rogers Govender welcomed the attendees saying how they will “come together as people of different faiths and none” to remember.
A variety of faith leaders also addressed the crowd including Nidhi Sinha, Rabbi Warren Elf, Imam Irfan Chishti and Sukhbir Singh, and from humanist Dr Kevin Malone.
Prince William read a passage from 1 Corinthians:
“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
Upon leaving, Prince William and other diplomats placed messages on the Tree of Hope for the victims.
The Duke’s message read: “To all those affected you will never be forgotten.
“And to the people of Manchester my admiration for your display of strength, decency and community in the face of this unparalleled tragedy.”
Theresa May’s said: “Today we hold in our hearts the memory of those who were lost on the 22nd May 2017, their families, friends and those whose lives were irrevocably changed.
“May the kindness and fortitude we witnessed that night triumph and the great spirit of Manchester never be vanquished.”
