August 22 - The Mantle

Now the Stole Royal was presented and put in place and then the Imperial Mantle.

This was a cope, like those worn by Cardinals in the Catholic Church. Elizabeth’s was woven of pure cloth of gold, embroidered with roses, the Tudor symbol, and the thistles, leeks, and shamrocks of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, respectively.

At this moment, as much as at any other time in the ceremony, it was as if the Church hierarchy welcomed her among them. Brian Barker said in his account that there was an audible gasp from one of the Peeresses in the Abbey.

The Archbishop spoke to her in her splendor: “Receive this Imperial Robe, and the Lord your God endue you with knowledge and wisdom, with majesty and with power from on high: the Lord clothe you with the robe of righteousness, and with the garments of salvation.” When the Representative of God’s people in a certain place has authority and bestows it thus, the wise will take hold with faith and humility and never let go.

We may, if we will, go today to words that have been spoken to us by God’s Representative Who is in the Exact Image of God; we may seize and hold, with true faith and in the power of right humility, the truth we hear . . . and never let go. For this, we came into Cor Unum, dear Sisters . . . and Brothers.

"The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” (John 17:22, 23


"Not Even Solomon in All His Glory"
photo by Kerry