Camilla & Charles, Eternal Verities, Public Penitence, and Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

The public blessing used the Act of Penitence from the 1662 Common book of Prayer.

When the fidelity question was posed, each vowed

"That is my resolve, with the help of God"

That is all any mere human beings can do. Their public vows during the blessing after the wedding were significant, not just as a 'regularizing' of their actual situation, as it may termed, but also as a public profession of belief in something beyond themselves, in eternal verities.

Yet, this week, during the week of the wedding of Charles and Camilla, we were treated to the most unkind and sneering treatment of any couple about to be married that I remember. Their sins were rather common, after all.

CBC reports on the wedding were particularly unsatisfactory, always including something negative or nasty -- no forgiveness for anyone's human foibles there. In the Sunday a.m. TV account of the wedding, dripping dripping with sarcasm, Carol McNeil and Evan Soloman's comments had a sneering tone, as they made fun of the pair, a tone they do not use when reporting far worse. Think of the harm done to Canadians in the waste of public money with the sponsorship / ADSCAM $$$ corruption -- and probably much more. That warrants a softer approach with the CBC.

Whatever these employees think privately, they were sharing with the public their private and negative attitudes, or is theirs the CBC attitude toward our monarchy? [but not toward the queen's representative, the GG's wastefulness, note] Magnanimity? Never!

Christianity teaches that even the worst of sinners is forgiven by God if they repent and vow to do better. Human beings are fallible and require a recognition by them of their own fallibility before something outside themselves, something to which they turn for hope. That is God to Whom they turn for understanding and for forgiveness.

The funeral service for Pope Paul, the wooden coffin, the recognition that all of us simply return to dust as the spirit leaves -- all brought intimations of our mortality.

As public figures whose wrongs were the stuff of media reporters' heaven for so long -- especially in the face of the wronged and sainted Diana, she of her own affairs and other indiscretions of the verbal diarrhoeic variety (She could have considered her two sons.) -- these two publicly announced their recognition of a God and asked forgiveness on what should have been a happy wedding day. They could have had a quiet civil ceremony, perhaps, and avoided this, but they did not.

Two royals, humbled in the face of God by the evidence of their own fallibility publicized, and acknowledging their own intimations of mortality, made a public confession and resolved to do better.

To something like the CBC (and our government, among others) there are no eternal verities to which man should bow -- certainly nothing invoking the name of God, publicly.

To me, this ceremony was more touching than the original fairytale production with Diana center stage. That wedding was a teenager's idea of what a wedding ceremony means, all fluff and little substance.

A real understanding of the import of the marriage ceremony and a marriage are much more what Camilla and Charles appear have learned, something very serious, and they are old enough to realize it. She is "of a certain age" and there are lines in her face but he obviously loves her as she is; he, as the media detail, has his own negatives.

Their public profession of faith was the most hopeful and affecting part of the blessing ceremony.

Charles and Camilla to admit 'sins and wickedness' in service Angelina, 07 April 2005, the Royal Archives (via Simon Freeman, Times Online April 07, 2005. )

The Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles [admitted] their "manifold sins and wickedness" in the Anglican church's strongest language when their wedding [was] blessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury on Saturday.

The Prince [pledged] to be faithful to his new wife in the service of prayer and dedication at St George's Chapel within the grounds of Windsor Castle.

Instead of the more recent and moderate prayers of penitence written for divorcees, the Prince and the new Duchess of Cornwall will then join the congregation in reading what is regarded as the most severe act of penitence from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

The confession reads: "We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, by thought, word and deed."

Charles and Camilla [said]: "We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings. Have mercy upon us .... Forgive us all that is past." Both have committed adultery during their previous marriages.

Lord Carey, the Former Archbishop of Canterbury, is expected to lighten the mood with a reading from the Book of Revelation which includes the line: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

The actor Timothy West, also a friend of Charles and Camilla, [gave] a reading, reciting Ode: Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth. The poem includes the line oft-quoted by John Mortimer's fictional barrister Rumpole: "Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy."

After their marriage, the public confession, along with a resolve to do better, was a profession of belief. They were affirming a belief in eternal verities -- a belief in something beyond the self, beyond materialism. It is something our society has lost, perhaps, but the blessing ceremony was a humbling experience for all of us, those participating, those watching.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood