Defender of the Faith, she clearly regarded that title as more than ceremonial.
Defender of the Faith, she clearly regarded that title as more than ceremonial.
‘M any religions have festivals which celebrate light overcoming darkness. Such occasions are often accompanied by the lighting of candles. They seem to speak to every culture, and appeal to people of all faiths, and of none. They are lit on birthday cakes and to mark family anniversaries, when we gather happily around a source of light. It unites us.”
That was the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s 2020 Easter message. This wasn’t one of the royal traditions — there were no previous and no subsequent Easter messages. But she was a mother who knew her people needed guidance, encouragement, and direction during the uncertainties of the Covid pandemic.
She talked about some of the traditions of Easter. As Good Friday moves into Holy Saturday and then into the evening before Easter day, there are often candles — a flame passed from one to another, slowly lighting up the dark church. “It’s a way of showing how the good news of Christ’s resurrection has been passed on from the first Easter by every generation until now,” she said.
People were feeling the darkness heavily that spring. “As dark as death can be — particularly for those suffering with grief — light and life are greater. May the living flame of the Easter hope be a steady guide as we face the future.” She wasn’t afraid to offer her Christian faith as an option and the hope of something more to a diverse population.
Americans remember her doing, in response to the September 11 attacks on us, what was all but unthinkable according to protocol: The queen had “The Star-Spangled Banner” played at the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. She said at the time, “Nothing that can be said can begin to take away the anguish and the pain of these moments. Grief is the price we pay for love.”
Faith and family were always close to her heart. In her first Christmas as queen, she continued in the tradition of her father, George VI: “As he used to do, I am speaking to you from my own home, where I am spending Christmas with my family; and let me say at once how I hope that your children are enjoying themselves as much as mine are on a day which is especially the children’s festival, kept in honor of the Child born at Bethlehem nearly 2,000 years ago.” Her coronation would be the following June, and she asked people of all faiths to pray for her — “to pray that God may give me wisdom and strength.”
Just last month, she wrote to Anglican bishops: “Throughout my life, the message and teachings of Christ have been my guide and in them I find hope. It is my heartfelt prayer that you will continue to be sustained by your faith in times of trial and encouraged by hope at times of despair.”
The West has become increasingly secular — even hostile to religious faith that is more than surface level. But Queen Elizabeth gave the impression that faith was at the root of not only her own life but civilization itself. Of course, since Henry VIII, the British monarch has been the Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, but it was clearly more than ceremonial to her. She demonstrated very personal Christian forgiveness in Ireland in 2011. As the Jesuit editor of America magazine, Father Matt Malone, has put it: “When Lord Louis Mountbatten was killed by agents of the Irish Republican Army in the summer of 1979, the queen suffered the loss of one of the most beloved members of her family, the uncle of her husband and the godfather of her first son. It was a truly extraordinary moment, therefore, when she laid a wreath at a memorial garden in Dublin dedicated to the memory of ‘all those who gave their lives in the cause of Irish Freedom.’ She had somehow found the courage within her to forgive, to rebuild, to begin anew.”
In her Christmas message later that year, one in which she also visited the United States, Queen Elizabeth said: “The spirit of friendship so evident in both these nations can fill us all with hope. Relationships that years ago were once so strained have through sorrow and forgiveness blossomed into long-term friendship. It is through this lens of history that we should view the conflicts of today, and so give us hope for tomorrow.”
She also said: “Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships, and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God’s love.”
The queen did what not only a defender of faith should do but what everyone should do who claims to believe in God, especially believers of the Judeo-Christian and Abrahamic tradition so many in the world come of: She challenged people as she sought to lead by example with love for mankind, whatever one believes.
PHOTOS: Queen Elizabeth II
At the end of the first year of the new millennium, she said: “For me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life. I, like so many of you, have drawn great comfort in difficult times from Christ’s words and example.”
She pointed to the practicality and urgent need for the golden rule: “Many will have been inspired by Jesus’s simple but powerful teaching: love God and love thy neighbor as thyself — in other words, treat others as you would like them to treat you. His great emphasis was to give spirituality a practical purpose.”
In her last Christmas address, the first since the death of her beloved husband, Prince Philip, she said that the teachings of Jesus have “been the bedrock” of her faith. She said His birth marked a new beginning, and cited the Christmas carol that says, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”
I wonder whether, if she could give us one last address, she might urge us to remember that there is much more to life than what is in headlines, what is on our to-do lists, and what is most vexing us. Most won’t live as long as she did, 96 years. Whoever you are, whatever you do, make it count. Make it inspire. Make it point to eternity and not the material. Queen Elizabeth had opulence, but that wasn’t what was most important. She seemed to never forget that. May we cease seeking that which is passing.
Or as she put it in 2002: “Each day is a new beginning, I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings, and to put my trust in God.”
And believers pray that perpetual light shines upon she who served well during her long life.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.