As part of my role as Children, Schools and Families chaplain, I regularly welcome schools to the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. It is a delight to welcome children to the church from all over the world: in the past week or so I have met children visiting from Korea, Guatemala, the USA, Portugal and the Czech Republic, as well as across Oxfordshire.

One of the stops on our tour is the Mahatma Gandhi Roof Boss hidden up in the gallery of the church, probably installed after Gandhi’s visit to Oxford in 1931. We talk about the symbolic significance of a great Hindu figure memorialised in the fabric of the church: a permanent indication of the church’s commitment to peace and to interreligious dialogue.

I like to ask the children: who do you think should be inscribed in the roof? Who would you add as a great role model? The answers are varied: some say themselves, since they consider themselves to be important. Others list famous singers or a favourite pet. Some children have, in my opinion more sensibly, suggested Malala Yousafzai and Pope Francis. One boy suggested Jesus, and I did gently point out that he is rather prominently displayed elsewhere.

In times of uncertainty, we are all called to move beyond the natural, childish impulse to view ourselves as the most important and to strive, in big and small ways, to be people of peace. To whom are we looking, and to whom are we listening, as our key voices and key role models in these times?

At the end of our school visits, we bask in the beautiful silence of the chancel and I invite the children to pray if they wish to, or to just be still. Please remember all the world’s children in your prayers this week, that they would know a safe and peaceful future, whether you are joining us in person at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin or joining with us spiritually from across the world.