Our Queen has died. Show some respect

National Post, 15 September 2022

The Conservative leadership convention should have been postponed, or at the least, been a much quieter affair

“May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

King Charles III concluded his first address with those words, the day after the death of Her Late Majesty The Queen.

It was widely commented that His Majesty was quoting Shakespeare, where Horatio holds the dying Hamlet in his arms and bids him, literally, adieu: “Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,/And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

The King, who knows his Shakespeare, no doubt had Horatio in mind. But His Majesty also knew that Shakespeare himself was quoting the Christian funeral liturgy, which sings: In paradisum deducant te angeli — May angels lead you into Paradise.”

Charles was making not only a cultural reference, but a liturgical one. And this week we are reminded — or perhaps learning for the first time — what it means to live liturgically.

Liturgy is usually understood as religious ritual, but its etymology is broader than that, including all those “public works” of ritual that bind a people together and give voice to their identity, deepest convictions and aspirations. Liturgy, which is the distilled wisdom of the generations, spares us the burden of having to improvise our own response to the most profound mysteries of life and death.

The power of liturgy, of ceremony — both civic and sacred — has been marvellously on display in the obsequies for Queen Elizabeth II. We have seen, through ritual, the veritable transformation of the Prince of Wales — so often derided, not least in this column — into a gracious and noble King. He has lived the liturgy of the week in his own way, making visits to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, but has wisely let the liturgy live in him.

Liturgy provides the context for the accession, which otherwise could appear vainglorious. Indeed, the liturgy moves us from human vainglory — the perennial temptation of princes, potentates, prelates and priests alike — to divine glory.

The Anglican liturgical calendar marks Sept. 8, the date of the Queen’s death, as the feast day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Liturgically-minded Anglicans, then, noted that the death of a queen and the birth of a queen were linked together by the calendar — the eternal visiting the temporal. To live liturgically means never being trapped in the tyranny of the present moment.

Liturgy relies more on symbols than words, no matter how beautiful. A flag flying at half mast speaks more eloquently than any number of press statements. The Scottish crown on the Queen’s coffin at St. Giles in Edinburgh said all that needed to be said about her devotion to Scotland.

The two great funerals of our age were those of Sir Winston Churchill and St. John Paul II. And the enduring images of those funerals were not expected, demonstrating the power of liturgy to express itself in unforeseen ways.

Even people not alive at the time have been moved by footage of the cranes at the London docks bowing in respect as Churchill’s funeral barge passed by on the Thames.

At John Paul’s funeral, as per custom, the Book of the Gospels was laid open upon the casket in St. Peter’s Square. A gentle breeze ruffled the pages. And then a final gust closed the book. The future Pope Benedict XVI delivered a magnificent and moving homily on the occasion, but it is the book closing itself that remains etched in memory.

Living liturgically means that the rhythms of eternity intrude upon our quotidian schedule. That’s why a liturgically observant culture has holidays; the practice has its roots in “holy days.” The purpose is not primarily leisure, but that normal activities are suspended for a higher purpose. Hence recreational activities have been suspended throughout the United Kingdom.

We urgently need to learn how to live liturgically.

Consider the appalling spectacle staged by the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) on Saturday night, a festival of partisan self-congratulation and exuberant cheering while the late Sovereign was not 72 hours dead. Had the fevered assemblage in Ottawa had ears to hear, the rumble of John Diefenbaker rolling in his grave could have been heard from Saskatchewan.

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