Oh, to be glad! To be glad when the alarm clock goes off, glad when it’s raining and when the sun is shining, and glad when we put our heads on our pillows at night. Elizabeth II did not choose her life, and as we have said, it looked as though she might be forty or fifty years old before that life caught up with her, before the rigors of reigning would be hers. Instead, at the tender age of twenty-five, she was Queen
Whether we are entering our twenties or leaving our seventies, we may be GLAD that majesty has come to us. Elizabeth’s came through birth and through death, and so has ours.
She entered the nave on that coronation day, and all the work of architects and carpenters and designers had turned it into a stage, with golden carpet and a raised dais for the throne. A team of medieval producers knew that people would want to SEE her, and so it has been for these many years since.
With a precision of timing that would have done credit to the most exacting military parade, the choir was proclaiming, “Vivat! Vivat Regina Elizabetha! Vivat! Vivat! Vivat!”, and the sound of their exclamation was as close to celestial as anything that can be heard on earth. It was tremendous!
“Live! Live, Queen Elizabeth! Live!” It was a song that was a shout, enough to make the hair on one’s neck stand up, even today, even seen and heard on the earliest of newsreel footage.
Her countenance was absolutely solemn all during the ceremony; she was there to be consecrated, and this was not Hollywood to those in attendance. It was with tremendous reluctance that filming had been permitted. Joy and gladness were all around her, but she was not on stage or on display, except as the Queen of her peoples. They were crying out, from London to the Orkney Islands, and from Sri Lanka to Canada, the celebration was tremendous as they awaited the news. “Vivat, Regina Elizabetha!” Live! Live!
Let us take a lesson from her today, and from the supremely glad cry from the choir: we are called to life! May we, with her, embrace our duty with gladness and rejoice, for like Ezekial’s bones, Someone has spoken over us, “Live! Live!”
Into the Theater
Rotherham Web
Cor Unum Abbey 