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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Canon Anne Easter

Good morning!

It is exactly sixty nine years ago today that Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, was crowned Queen Elizabeth the Second in Westminster Abbey. The Three hour service made history–the very first coronation service ever to be televised. It’s thought that around three quarters of the people in the United Kingdom were able to see it one way or another – my family went to my grandmother’s home and my sister, then a toddler, had a special white dress with red, white and blue ribbons on it. She later put on one of her dolls who wore it till it fell apart in the seventies.

I believe that the idea of people actually being able to see her coronation service was important to our Queen, and she and the Royal Family have gone on to allow tv cameras into their lives in an unprecedented manner - maybe so that the rest of us can see that some parts of royal life are really quite ordinary. I remember visiting Sandringham House and seeing Her Majesty’s jigsaw table with a half-finished puzzle on it. Woe betide the person who knocks over that table!

Today, most of us will have a day off work and many people have organised parties and picnics in a wider sharing of Her Majesty’s celebrations; we won’t have a diamond crown but we might eat coronation chicken and we will be able to enjoy the benefits of freedom under the law and relative peace - just some of the fruits of the Queen’s reign.

Gracious God, whose Kingdom of Love is available to us all, bless us and our sister Elizabeth that we and she may live all our days in health and prosperity.

Amen.