Queen's Platinum Jubilee: 'A wonderful beacon of hope and unity'

Stephen Cottrell has written a special article for The Press as he prepared to preach the sermon at today’s thanksgiving service for the Queen at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

He is replacing the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who has tested positive for Covid and has been suffering from mild pneumonia.

He said in his Press column that one of the "truly lovely" things about being Archbishop of York was that for a short period of time he became custodian of Bishopthorpe Palace, in Bishopthorpe, near York.

The Archbishop revealed that the Queen visited the palace as a young Princess and stayed there during the Royal Ascot meeting held in York in 2005 and, in the garden today, there was an avenue of trees planted to mark this Platinum Jubilee year.

He said that as pupils, staff and governors from the Archbishop of York Junior school gathered in the palace grounds last week, they reflected on what celebrating the Jubilee meant and "of how our Queen has been a wonderful beacon of hope, integrity, stability, and unity for our country and beyond".

There were few who remembered a monarch before her and this stability had been a "reassuring and encouraging presence in the midst of so much change", said the Archbishop.

He said the Queen had made a profound commitment in 1947, aged just 21, when she said, “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service”, and this had been faithfully realised.

At the heart of that commitment had been the Queen’s own deep faith, he added.

“So as we mark the Platinum Jubilee, it is my prayer that we remember that all of us are called by God to serve others in our homes, schools, communities and we are also invited to build our foundations on Jesus Christ.

“For when we serve others, we have the best opportunity of achieving the fairer and more just society which I hope we all wish to see.”

He said a former Archbishop, William Temple, who was Archbishop of York between 1929 and 1942, found time to write extensively, not least a 1942 work entitled “Christianity and Social Order”.

“In that period, at the start of the Second World War and through the darkest days of the blitz, with the sort of mind-set that only true visionaries have, Temple was asking the big question “when this is all over, what sort of nation do we want to be?”.

“Although he did not live to see it, much of his thought is foundational to so many things we take for granted today, not least the welfare state, the NHS, and our universal education system.”

He said the core of what Temple was striving for, as with so many other social reformers in this great City of York, was to improve the lives of people and see those lives transformed.

This reminded him of how far, as a country, we have come from those days and throughout all of this change, "we have lived with one Monarch, whose Jubilee we mark this weekend".