A cartwheeling verger, the couple’s prayer, and the wedding itself.
The blog Archbishop Cranmer shows us a verger at Westminster Abbey turning cartwheels in the aisle.
This anonymous verger is probably about to become a global superstar. It is so wonderfully Anglican. After the restraint of reverence, discretion, sobriety and reflection on the the fear of God, we witness the affirmation of unbridled joy. But this man is not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only three in the afternoon (cf Acts 2:15).
The Church Times noted:
THE DRESS might have been the secret that everyone wanted to discover, but the greatest secret of the wedding of Prince William to Catherine, now Duchess of Cambridge, turned out to be something nobody had expected. At the end of his address, the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres, read out a prayer composed by the couple.
It read: “God our Father, we thank you for our families; for the love that we share and for the joy of our marriage. In the busyness of each day keep our eyes fixed on what is real and important in life and help us to be generous with our time and love and energy. Strengthened by our union help us to serve and comfort those who suffer. We ask this in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.”
This was a clear indication, following on from Ms Middleton’s confirmation a few weeks ago, that the couple are willing to be identified as Christians, not only grateful for the prayers and good wishes of the public, but wanting to share in those prayers. Any fears that the ceremony had in some way been imposed on the couple, by the state or the Church, evaporated at this point.
The Church of England’s website has listed the prayer that William and Catherine wrote for their wedding as a “Topical Prayer” (with proper copyright attribution, of course!).
Here is the whole liturgy, without any announcers jabbering through the service: