Head over Heels with Joy

I enjoyed every minute of the Royal Wedding that I watched on TV yesterday. I was disappointed that it was the 1928 version of the Marriage Service that was used. Although it did seem to work in the context of that particular wedding and it is legal and beautiful, I really hope it's not going to lead to many more requests for this by couples planning C.of E. weddings. What's wrong with modern language?


I thought the choice of Bible reading was particularly apt and I note wih approval that it was read from the New Revised Standard Version and not the King James Bible and very well read too. Richard Chartres sermon has to be one of the best wedding sermons I've heard. I could go on - the whole event was a feast for the eyes, the ears and the spirit. Everyone seemed to play their part as we've come to expect of great British pageants of this sort. But at the centre was a man and woman making a life-long commitment to each other before God (and a truly enormous congregation!) and saying 'I will'. (When will all the media wake up to the fact that in a Church of England wedding no-one ever gets to say 'I do'.)


In the sermon was a reference to the fruit of the Spirit as 'love, joy and peace'. A verger appeared to be head over heels with joy and demonstrated that after all the guests had left the abbey. Was he relieved it had all gone without a hitch? I did wonder what the abbey staff had been drinking after the service - but I'll assume that the person who turned cartwheels on the red carpet in the aisle was full of the joy of the Holy Spirit of God. If you haven't already seen this video clip - enjoy!

Comments

  1. Agree very much with this, Nancy. I too thoroughly enjoyed the wedding and felt it was very well balanced. I was most impressed by Jams Middleton's reading, which he appeared to have memorised and delivered beautifully.

    The cartwheeling verger was delghtful and probably over the moon that everything had gone off without a hitch and he could at last relax :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was wonderful. I would have done a cartwheel, too, after such a beautiful and seemingly picture perfect day!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Perpetua - thanks for commenting. If only everyone who does a Bible reading in church would rehearse as thoroughly as James Middleton presumably did. He really lifted the words off the page. I do wonder if the cartwheeling verger was responding to a dare - by his wife perhaps?
    Penelope - sadly I no longer dare try to turn cartwheels, but I have been known to skip down a church aisle.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The cartwheeler was apparently Ben Sheward.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I did wonder if vicars and churchwardens might be a bit worried that everyone's going to ask for their church to be filled with trees and cartwheeling vergers for their weddings....

    ReplyDelete
  6. Autolycus - I think avenues of trees inside small rural churches could be a problem. As for cartwheeling vergers the couple could be told 'the verger only cartwheels after the trees are removed and everyone else has left - he/she is very shy and safety conscious'.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment