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A life of dedicated service

Her Majesty the Queen

Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee Statement

February 5, 2022.

Tomorrow, 6th February, marks the 70th anniversary of my Accession in 1952. It is a day that, even after 70 years, I still remember as much for the death of my father, King George VI, as for the start of my reign.As we mark this anniversary, it gives me pleasure to renew to you the pledge I gave in 1947 that my life will always be devoted to your service.

As I look ahead with a sense of hope and optimism to the year of my Platinum Jubilee, I am reminded of how much we can be thankful for. These last seven decades have seen extraordinary progress socially, technologically and culturally that have benefitted us all; and I am confident that the future will offer similar opportunities to us and especially to the younger generations in the United Kingdom and throughout the Commonwealth.

I am fortunate to have had the steadfast and loving support of my family. I was blessed that in Prince Philip I had a partner willing to carry out the role of consort and unselfishly make the sacrifices that go with it. It is a role I saw my own mother perform during my father’s reign.

This anniversary also affords me a time to reflect on the goodwill shown to me by people of all nationalities, faiths and ages in this country and around the world over these years. I would like to express my thanks to you all for your support. I remain eternally grateful for, and humbled by, the loyalty and affection that you continue to give me. And when, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes King, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me; and it is my sincere wish that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort as she continues her own loyal service.

And so as I look forward to continuing to serve you with all my heart, I hope this Jubilee will bring together families and friends, neighbours and communities – after some difficult times for so many of us – in order to enjoy the celebrations and to reflect on the positive developments in our day-to-day lives that have so happily coincided with my reign.

Your Servant

Elizabeth R.

Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ exchanged the glory of a heavenly throne for the form of a servant,
we thank you that you have given Elizabeth our Queen a heart to serve her people,
and have kept her devoted in this service beyond all who were before her:
encourage us by her example to serve one another, and to seek the common good,
until you call us all to reign with Christ in your eternal kingdom.
Amen.

The Manger and the Cross

St Brigit’s cross

I post this on February 1st, the day the Church celebrates
St Brigit of Kildare (or Brigid or as she is also known Mary of the Gaels).

She is regarded as one of the patron saints of Ireland (with St. Patrick). She was founder and Abbess of a double monastery (for men and women) at Cill Dare (Church of the Oak).

Central to Brigit’s prayer and ministry was her belief that:
It was Christ and his Twelve Apostles who proclaimed the Gospel to the peoples of the world and it is in their name that I look after the poor, for Christ is to be found in the person of every faithful poor person.

She believed it was her duty as Christ’s servant to lead people over the dangerous bridge of this life to the gleaming country of heaven.
This was at the heart of her mission and of who she was.

She was a bridge between this world and the Kingdom of Heaven. As such it is fitting that she occupies that point in the Christian Calendar which turns our thoughts and prayers from Christmas to Easter – from the wonderful joy of God coming to be amongst us in the Incarnation, saving us and the world from within to the completion of that salvation in the Glory of the Cross and through the Crucifixion. Those two events form a bridge taking us from birth to resurrection.

An illustration of this bridging of the world by Manger and Cross, is through the Cross that is called after her – St. Brigit’s Cross.

It is said that it first came about because a pagan chief from the neighbourhood of Kildare lay dying.
He sent for Brigit come and to talk to him about Jesus.
By the time she got there, he was delirious and raving with fever. It was impossible to talk to him nor
could she instruct him about Christ.
Instead, she sat by his bed and began consoling him.
As was usual, the floor was strewn with rushes for warmth and cleanliness.
Brigit picked some of the rushes up and began to weave them into a cross as she talked.
His delirium quietened and he was able to ask her what she was doing. As she talked, she gently explained about Jesus, his Cross and the salvation he brought.
In that quiet moment, handing him the little cross she moved him gently from earth to heaven as she baptized him at the point of his death.

She had taken symbolically, some strands of the Manger and turned it into the sign of the Cross – the Saving Sign.
In this way God used the devoted and faithful Brigit to help him claim another soul for heaven.

She gave us an important sign too. In her woven cross she combined the straw of the Manger and the wood of the Cross and it takes us to the heart of Brigit’s understanding about God. Her spirituality is woven into the simplicity of the link between these two waymarks of our pilgrimage of faith.

[Mr G]

Little Things

This quotation by Desmond Tutu put me in mind of similar sayings especially Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She used to insist that she and her sisters didn’t do great things but little things with a great love.

St David on his death bed drew his monks around him and his final words were:

“Brothers and sisters, be joyful Keep the faith and do the little things that you saw and heard from me.” The little things which David taught included prayer, being present for the breaking of bread at the Eucharist; reading scripture; speaking only when necessary and helping the poor. He believed also that we should have a deep respect for others; that we should always be lowly, possessing a humility which never expresses itself arrogantly and which steers us away from pride. He also set great store on hospitality – always being ‘at home’ for others and for God – having time for both.

Probably, though, my favourite story about doing the little things we can is about a little sparrow.

A little sparrow laid on his back with his legs in the air. Another sparrow came past and asked the sparrow in his back what he was doing. He replied that he had heard that the sky was going to fall in and thought that he should try and help hold it up.

The other sparrow laughed and said, “You’re only a little sparrow with little legs. How can you hold up the whole sky?

The sparrow laid on the floor with his legs in the air, turned his head and said:

“I know, but one does what one can.”

My friend and fellow blogger Daryl Madden whose bloggings I follow, wrote a poem a couple of weeks ago which he has given me permission to re-blog here. Daryl is a follower of Jesus and a lover of God. He lives in America and his daily poems often give me inspiration.

Here’s his poem, Little Things –

Little Things

Little gifts of kindness
Of generosity
Bring light to this world
Through humility

Little acts of love
Through the trinity
Draw the world as One
Bound Spiritually

Little prayers of faith
Through divinity
Turns the worlds direction
Oh, so gradually

All these little moments
One day we will see
In another world
Flow to eternity

The little things in life
The world sees as small
Turns out in the end
Are the greatest, of all

Daryl Madden

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Forgiveness out of suffering

Holocaust Memorial

As I lit a candle at 8pm tonight, in a window of my home I thought about the many millions of people who have suffered and died at the whim of tyrannical regimes who pursued warped and insane ideologies. People who cared only about themselves and their self centred beliefs. Germany, under the power of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi’s has come to symbolize this evil which destroys others in demonic acts of unadulterated hatred. This included not only Jews but gay people, gypsies, those challenged with physical and mental illness and black people who suffered in their millions. The Germany of today is very different but these demonic inhuman acts go on still in our world today.

The taste of death; the scars of life; broken memories; shattered families; history of peoples trod upon. No words can describe what it was like or what it would come to mean. Only those who were there in the camps could even begin to tell us, just as today only those who suffer through immense acts of inhumanity can really understand what it’s like.

Yet just as at every Remembrance Sunday, the moving Khoima Epitaph is spoken with its words, for your tomorrow, we gave our today, so the candle and the prayers and the remembrance of those whose lives were destroyed in the camps has a similar message. No more evil and destruction of people in an outpouring of the demonic on that or any scale. We too gave our lives for your freedom – do not squander our sacrifice. Work for the good, the peace, the harmony of all.

We are all human and equal in God’s sight, in God’s care.

So we are to be Watchful,  having concern for and holding fast to what it means to be truly human and in love with what that involves. We are to be generous, kind, compassionate, merciful and just .

Whilst it is all too easy to be angry, hurt and resentful, about the holocaust and those who suffered so deeply, it is easy too to be angry about the treatment of refugees and displaced people of today and those living in poverty and need of all kinds. Also, those who are different in race,colour,sexuality,gender and creed. To overcome those negative feelings there must be room for ‘Forgiveness’, born out of love.

When the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp in Germany was liberated at the end of the Second World War, a prayer was found on a scrap of paper in the camp, and it is often used today in acts of remembrance for the Holocaust victims. Both the Jewish, Christian and other faiths teach followers not to seek revenge, but to pray for their ‘enemies’, for those who hurt them, or who make them suffer in some way. Although many Jews, Christians,  and those who follow other faiths  find this extremely hard, there are always some who astound us by their love and generosity.

In the Bible, God’s judgment is seen as something positive, something to look forward to.

Psalm 96 talks of the earth rejoicing and trees singing for joy when God comes to judge the earth. God’s judgment is seen as the time when wrongs will be put right, when those who suffer injustice or oppression will be rescued. But God’s judgment is also seen as merciful. Christians believe God’s judgment will rescue the perpetrators from their wrongdoing, as well as their victims.

Here is the Prayer. It is moving, amazing and deeply generous. It is born out of compassion and mercy.

Lord, remember not only the men of good will, but also those of ill will.
But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted upon us.
Remember rather the fruits we have brought, thanks to this suffering:
our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage,
the generosity, the greatness of heart that has grown out of this.
And when they come to judgment,
let all the fruits we have borne be their forgiveness.

Then said Jesus a fellow Jew, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34)

[Mr. G]