ArticleBlog | Queen Elizabeth’s reign of joyful faith and service
Queen Elizabeth’s reign of joyful faith and service
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 23.06.22
‘O Christ Our God …fill my heart always with the joy of faithful service…’ This was one of the prayers the Queen was invited to pray as she prepared for her coronation. It’s a prayer God seems to have answered over the Queen’s 70-year reign, which is being celebrated this year from 2 June to Pentecost Sunday, 5 June. In the month before her coronation, the Queen began 33 days of personal preparation using a Little Book of Private Devotions – short, daily meditations with Bible readings and prayers written especially for her by the then Archbishop of Canterbury George Fisher. The Devotions were published in a slim, black, leather bound volume to help the new Queen prepare for her coronation in Westminster Abbey. Fewer than a dozen copies were printed.
Seventy years later, as the Queen celebrates her Platinum Jubilee, HOPE Together has published a new gift book, Our Faithful Queen, drawing on the prayers and Bible readings in the Devotions, as well as the Queen’s speeches, to show how her Christian faith has sustained her throughout her reign.
The focus of the Little Book of Private Devotions is the coronation ceremony and its deep symbolism, rooted in the Bible. At the heart of the coronation there was a hidden ceremony, screened from the television cameras. In this most sacred part of the Westminster Abbey service, the Queen was anointed with oil.
The purpose of this anointing was clear. It was an anointing for service to others. The Devotions reminded the Queen of Jesus’ words: ‘…the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves’ [Luke 22:26].
After the anointing, the Queen knelt for a blessing. In the Devotions she was invited to look ahead to that moment:
For a brief moment I can be quiet and still, motionless in spirit, at rest before the Lord, while the words of blessing f
