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Good Morning.  Leicester is not a city that I know at all – or such was the case until a couple of weeks ago, when I visited during a conference.  So I am now familiar with the city centre, some of its buildings ancient and modern, and the cathedral, with, of course, the tomb of King Richard III.  I had seen, and enjoyed, the television coverage of the reinterment, but I have to say that to stand by the tomb of the king, newly in place five hundred and thirty years after his death, was a poignant experience.  And as I continue this week’s thoughts about memorialisation, the question for me has to do with human identity and posterity, living under the judgment of history.

Christianity would have much to say about this, as would all religions, and remembrance is a very rich theological construct.  It is more than a tomb or any physical place:  St Augustine tells us  how his mother Monica, at her death, asked only one thing:  to be remembered in prayer at the altar of the eucharist or the mass.  As people of faith, the greatest thing that we can do for our departed is to pray for them: pray for them, and love them.  History and literature lead us to a certain view of Richard III, but we really don’t know.  Without clear evidence, I cannot think badly of him, and in fact I am touched by the humanity of what we do know of his life:  his mother’s concern for him, his scoliosis, his wife and child who both pre-deceased him, the shortness of his life.  And so I pray:  Lord, keep me from judgment, and teach me to see the best in all your people. Amen.