Displaying items by tag: Platinum Jubilee

The UK and Commonwealth will celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee with a four-day holiday weekend (2 to 5 June). HOPE Together is working to help churches around the Commonwealth to mark this special occasion and, in particular, to celebrate the Queen’s seventy years of faith and service. It has produced a web-page resource (see link below) with information to assist churches and organisations as they plan their celebrations. HOPE have commissioned a new anthem, ‘Rise Up and Serve’, written by Graham Kendrick and Rend Collective for choirs to sing as part of the celebrations. The highlight for many will be on Pentecost Sunday, where services in churches around the Commonwealth will give thanks for the Queen’s life of service and witness to her Christian faith.

For the jubilee celebrations, the Church of England has produced a range of liturgical resources for churches to use. The resources produced by HOPE Together include ‘Our Faithful Queen’, a gift book using rarely-seen prayers the Queen prayed as she prepared for the Coronation; a Happylands book ‘The Girl Who Grew Up To Be Queen’ for under-5s;' a YouTube video, from the team that brought together ‘The UK Blessing’ during lockdown, featuring choirs from around the Commonwealth singing the new anthem; and ‘70 Acts of Service’, an invitation to communities to celebrate by serving others.

Prince Charles delivered the Queen’s speech last week, giving the world a glimpse of the future king. Joe Little, editor of Majesty Magazine, says the Queen’s increasingly infrequent appearances have a ‘huge inevitability’ about them given her age; in the future we will only occasionally see her. Rushed to hospital in October, struck down with Covid in February and increasingly frail, her appearances are now rare. Just three weeks from an unprecedented four-day weekend to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee, we can pray that her strength and stamina grows in that time. Buckingham Palace speaks of the Queen’s ‘episodic mobility issues’, but she is still sharp and conducting her duties from the comfort of Windsor Castle. On her good days, she needs a walking aid; on bad days she is immobile. In June the Queen will not use the gold state coach in the Platinum Pageant procession. She will travel by car to an easier entrance than the Great West Door of St Paul’s Cathedral.