The 1805 Dispatches #21.DofE April 2021 11 which fosters resilience, resourcefulness and leadership in young people. He was a prophetic voice on environmental issues and the protection of the natural world. What he described as the “Web of life”. As a nation, we are most thankful for the 73 years that he spent in what became his life’s work, as husband to Her Majesty the Queen. Her “strength and stay” for all those years. We owe him our heartfelt gratitude for those years of duty and service to the Queen and to our country. Prince Philip was unstinting in his devotion to her as the longest serving consort in our history. What most of the tributes paid to Prince Philip yesterday do not mention was what the BBC described as his “lifelong interest in spiritual matters”. He was a man of strong and active, deep and genuine faith. Faith was something to be explored and his Royal Highness kept up a lifelong friendship and correspondence with several Deans of Windsor. The Archbishop of Canterbury commented that the Prince would always have a question or comment for the preacher. The motto beneath his coat of arms is “God is my help”. I have heard many stories, and I’m sure that those of you who met him will have similar tales to tell, of the down-to-earth, no fuss, no unnecessary ceremony, sheer love of humanity, side of his nature. One story that struck me was of His Royal Highness on a visit to the Royal Marines where he was due to have lunch in the Of�icers Mess. Prince Philip on meeting a group of marines having lunch out in the �ield, sat down on a bergen (rucksack), asked two corporals for a mess tin and some of the food they were having and spent the rest of the visit sitting and chatting with them, missing the formal lunch that had been planned. The way the press have portrayed Prince Philip on many occasions as some kind of two-dimensional �igure that made politically incorrect jokes or was short tempered, does not do justice to the man who has had these long years to exercise considerable tact and diplomacy, who was the rock on which the Queen depended, and on whom so many others depended too. Thomas, called the twin, one of the disciples of Jesus, would have commiserated with Prince Philip about a having a reputation that has stuck but that is not particularly well-deserved. Forever known as “Doubting” Thomas, a name given to him due to his reported refusal to believe in the resurrection of Christ because he had not seen the risen Lord himself. But when confronted by Jesus a week later, Thomas does not need to put his hands in the wounds that the body of Jesus bears from the cruci�ixion, to see Jesus before him is enough. He proclaims Jesus as Lord and God in that moment and goes on as one of the group of disciples who receive the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and one of those who gives his testimony of the resurrection with great power in the Acts of the Apostles. That moment of doubt handed down to us, may well have given Thomas days of wrestling with the truth of the accounts of the resurrection but in history Thomas is recorded as the “doubter”. In this season of Easter and in this time of mourning, we too as Christians, are called to proclaim the word of life made real to us in the death and resurrection of Christ. The eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest, made clear to us in Christ. Through Jesus we can walk in the light of God all the days of this life and go to live in that light more fully and eternally. We offer our sincere condolences to her Majesty and the Royal Family this day and to all who grieve the death of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. We remember too, all those others who mourn the death of a loved one at this time. We pray that all in sorrow may �ind comfort in the Christian hope that death is not the end of life and that in God’s love we each continue for ever. I’d like to �inish with the words of a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins that has been a favourite of the Royal Family over the years. ‘‘I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.’ Prince Philip has lived his life by doing what he described as “his best”, he put his hand in the hand of God, and we pay tribute and give thanks for all that he has done and been in his long and full life. May he rest in peace and rise in glory. Amen.” (Photo: ORNC Chapel)
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