“Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, rejoice!“

October 2022

The books of condolence have been closed and are on their way to the Royal family, the flags have returned to masthead and BBC radio is playing its normal playlist, every day life is continuing. Hymns like All my hope on God is founded, chosen by the Queen for her Funeral Service, are full of confidence, optimism and faith. They speak to those who mourn of an energy that will carry them if they only look and ask for it. The additional seven day mourning period of the royal family is almost complete and we are getting on with the fabric of our lives.

We seem to do this rather well in this country, the many steps and outward stages that we have all been through as a nation, are not to be confused with mawkishness or unnecessary gloom, the stages of grief, when abserved, are there to guide us through, “the lantern in our hand” as it were, in the words of King George the sixth, words which are to be found in the Chantry chapel in St George’s Windsor where Queen Elizabeth II is now interred, with her father, mother and husband. Our cultural is not to be oversentimental or gloomy for its own sake but to allow each successive stage to process our grief. Once the healing has taken place, even if it comes with scarring, we are once again able to identify our blessings and count them, and to rejoice in the Lord always as St Paul puts it.

If you need a lift I can recommend St Paul’s letter to the Philippians, it is one of the shortest of the epistles but very definitely the most joyful. There’s a time for everything and for everything a season and now it is time to rediscover joy.

The Reverend Andrew Wilkinson, Vicar