May 13 – “Vivat! Vivat!”

Oh, to be glad! To be glad when the alarm clock goes off, glad when it’s raining and when the sun is shining, and glad when we put our heads on our pillows at night.

The monastic has every reason to be glad, for she is living the life she chose, the one she wanted for herself. But … what about the monarch?

Elizabeth II did not chose her life, and as we have said, it looked as though she might be forty or fifty years old before that life caught up with her, before the rigors of reigning would be hers. Instead, at the tender age of twenty-five, she was Queen
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Whether we in Cor Unum are entering our twenties or leaving our seventies, we would be GLAD that majesty has come to us. Elizabeth’s came through birth and through death, and so has ours.

She entered the nave on that coronation day, and all the work of architects and carpenters and designers had turned it into a stage, with golden carpet and a raised dais for the throne. This team of producers knew that people would want to SEE her, and so it has been for these many years since.
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By now the choir was proclaiming, “Vivat! Vivat Regina Elizabetha! Vivat! Vivat! Vivat!”, and the sound of their exclamation was even more thrilling than all that had gone before. “Live! “Live, Queen Elizabeth! Live!” It was a shout, enough to make the hair on one’s neck stand up, even today. For the last time ever in her life, Elizabeth bowed, north, south, east, and west, to the will of her people, her acknowledgement that she would reign and serve, and for her it was with gladness of heart and the fullness of duty.

Her countenance was absolutely solemn all during the ceremony, which was to her a religious procedure, as it was meant to be, but she has been smiling ever since, learning to be more generous with her smiles, which are electrifying. Let us take a lesson from her today, and may we embrace our duty with gladness and rejoice, for like Ezekial’s bones, Someone has spoken over us, “Live! Live!”