MAJESTY

Reflections on the Life of Christ with Queen Elizabeth II

Written by: Richard Harries

Published by: SPCK

Price: £19.99

This beautiful hardback is a love letter to the unwavering steadfast faith of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Using the Queen’s own references to faith and scripture from her speeches and Christmas messages, the book uses colourful reproductions of art and passages from the Bible to illustrate the lifelong devotion to duty and faith of the Queen, who died in September 2022.

Using the words of the Queen, pulled from her Christmas broadcasts from her 70-plus years on the throne, the author, the retired Bishop of Oxford, has also drawn on paintings from the Royal Collection (and other sources) to illustrate the book, creating a beautiful hardback which can be dipped into when time is short or digested fully in a single sitting.

The author describes how the book is written ‘out of a deep sense of respect and gratitude to Her Majesty’ and outlines the four elements at its heart: extracts from the life and teaching of Jesus; artistic depictions from the life of Christ; reflections on the artwork and quotations from the late Queen’s Christmas broadcast ‘which relate her faith to that life of Christ and his teachings.’

In an introduction, he writes: “To do one’s duty is to accept the responsibilities of the role one inhabits – as a parent to a child, as children to parents, as citizens to the country, as employers to employees, and vice-versa, as Christians to the church to which we belong. To accept the responsibilities of a role is to put aside one’s personal feelings, one’s likes and dislikes, to do what the role requires. It involves daily sacrifice. We saw this pre-eminently in our much-loved late Queen. She did not ask to be monarch, certainly not at that young age. But from the first she recognised that it was a responsibility she had to accept and from the first she pledged herself to fulfil its duties, which she did faithfully to the end. Her life was one given over to service.”

Harries notes that her ‘steadfast faithfulness was rooted in Christian faith’ and describes how it was made increasingly clearer with greater emphasis and reference in the royal broadcasts of her later years.

The book offers a permanent reminder of the constant faith of the late Queen and fully underlines its importance and value to her during her long reign.