The Queen: ‘I follow Christ’s example’
by Madeleine Davies, Church Times:
THE Queen has spoken of the hope inspired by the acts of goodness of “unsung heroes”.
And she ended her televised message on Christmas Day with an explicitly Christian message, shared by many on social media: “Jesus Christ lived obscurely for most of his life, and never travelled far. He was maligned and rejected by many, though he had done no wrong. And yet, billions of people now follow his teaching, and find in him the guiding light for their lives.
“I am one of them, because Christ’s example helps me see the value of doing small things with great love, whoever does them, and whatever they themselves believe.”
Prescriptions for fear and uncertainty were offered in other Christmas messages from various bishops. As 2016 drew to a close, people “might be tempted to say ‘Good riddance!’” the Bishop of Portsmouth, the Rt Revd Christopher Foster, suggested.
The Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres, read from Yeats’s The Second Coming (“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”), and warned of a “new Ice Age of humanity: sterile and tedious”. Hope, he said, “seems to be in short supply”. The Archbishop of Canterbury spoke of a world that seemed “awash with fear and division”.
It was unclear whether it was this sermon — in which the Archbishop spoke of a child lowered into a supermarket bin to scavenge for food — or Archbishop Welby’s tweet: “Jesus came to us homeless and in a manger. This Christmas please pray with me for the poor, hungry and homeless, here and abroad” that annoyed the former UKIP leader, Nigel Farage.
Read also: Well said, Ma’am!: As the BBC’s Political Editor reveals the Queen supports Brexit, Quentin Letts says of course she does – she understands her people far better than any politician
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