That same year, it was the year of the European City of Culture for Liverpool, Her Late Majesty came to Liverpool and there was a formal lunch. I was at a table not far away from her. Also at the table with her was a Rwandan woman who had escaped the genocide but lost almost her entire family and seen most terrible horrors. At the end of lunch, the Queen invited her to come and sit next to her, and talked to her for at least 20 minutes, while some of her staff hovered, twitching. And when I spoke to her later, she said, ‘there was healing’.

Both Her late Majesty and His Majesty treat others as special because for both their faith is built on the same rock. The rock of Christ. It is a rock on which we too can stand. There is room on that rock for every human being, however important or unimportant. Our sure hope comes from the fact the monarchy is not in a person, it is in God’s loving grace that he poured upon the Queen and pours upon the King – ‘Thy choicest gifts in store, on him be pleased to pour’.

This is the faith that enabled Her Late Majesty to be such a blessing to us, and to people around the world, an example of wisdom and reconciliation. Some of us will remember seeing on television her visit to Ireland in 2011 when, at the formal state dinner, she opened her speech in the Irish language, and Mary MacAleese, the then President of Ireland, looked at her neighbour at the table and went ’wow’. Or when Her Majesty in 2012, chose quite literally to extend the hand of friendship to Martin McGuinness, despite their differences and painful history – including the very personal history for the Queen of the death of her beloved uncle Lord Mountbatten as a result of an IRA attack in 1979. She was able to offer her hand because she stood on the rock of Christ.

She knew that every person is part of the flock, she saw every one of her subjects and every person she met as part of God’s treasured people. She knew that even in the shadow of the valley of death the Good Shepherd was with here. She knew that throughout this country’s darkest days and greatest victories, the hand of the Lord seeks us out and guides us. His Majesty knows the same. We have continuity, we have stability through grace.

Her life made sense in the light of Jesus Christ, her Lord and Saviour. So does that of His Majesty.

Read it all.

An online book of condolence is available on our website where you can send a tribute to Her Majesty The Queen:

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) September 11, 2022

Economists said that the Consumer Price Index data cemented the case for a third straight, unusually large three-quarter percentage point Fed rate increase at the central bank’s meeting next week, and stocks swooned as investors began to speculate that officials could opt for an even more drastic full percentage point adjustment.

“Inflation remains hot, financial conditions have seen some improvement and the labor markets are humming along,” Neil Dutta, head of U.S. economics at Renaissance Macro, wrote in a research note following the release. “If the goal is to slow things down and create some pain, the Fed is failing by its own standard.”

The Fed closely watches the core inflation gauge, making its rebound in August a point of particular concern. After cutting out food and fuel, consumer prices climbed by 6.3 percent in the year through last month, up from 5.9 percent in July and more than the 6.1 percent economists had projected.

Even looking at overall inflation, the report’s details offered plenty to worry about.

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Rapidly rising rents and grocery prices, unfortunately, more than offset the relief of >90 days of falling gas prices. High inflation remains at levels not seen in over 40 years. https://t.co/OpOBY7X408

— Michael C. Khouw (@Michael_Khouw) September 13, 2022

Listen to it all and there re other options here.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
Romans 8:1 NIVhttps://t.co/IsIAGZlxhQ. Poster credit: @youversion pic.twitter.com/wvggAViYKa

— John Mmbaga (@johnmmbagaKE) April 5, 2021

For Mr. Putin, the war in Ukraine began as what Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass has called a “war of choice.” Mr. Putin could have left Ukraine undisturbed and gone on to rule Russia for many years to come. But having chosen to start the war, he can’t afford to lose it. Radical Russian nationalists are already blaming him for the military failures in Ukraine. The Kremlin is no place for the weak, and the hard men who run Russia could turn on a politically wounded Mr. Putin in a heartbeat. Regardless of public sentiment across Russia, the people closest to Mr. Putin likely still want him to win the war.

The question is what Mr. Putin does next. If he can stabilize the military front until winter sets in, he has several months to prepare for the spring. He might use that time to organize a general mobilization, building a much larger conscript army for another year of conventional combat. But if the front doesn’t stabilize, or if he feels that public resistance to a general mobilization could endanger the stability of the regime, he might look to more drastic options, such as the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

It is anything but clear how the West would respond. Allowing Mr. Putin to use nuclear blackmail to assert his control over Ukraine would be such a craven act that the moral and political foundations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would be shaken to the core—and nuclear-armed aggressors elsewhere would take note. Yet the obvious countermove, placing Ukraine under an American nuclear umbrella, risks the greatest nuclear crisis since John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev squared off over Cuba in October 1962.

So far, American policy has aimed at avoiding the binary choice between abandoning Ukraine and provoking a nuclear confrontation with Russia….

Read it all.

What if Putin Uses a Nuclear Weapon in Ukraine? by @wrmead Putin’s response to Ukraine’s military success could lead to the most dangerous nuclear standoff since the 1962 Cuba Missile Crisis. https://t.co/0Wy002dYZw

— Walter Russell Mead (@wrmead) September 12, 2022

There is a danger that we consign Elizabeth and what she represents of embodied faithfulness to the angels and to history and go forward on our atomised way as a society and a Church into an ever more individualist future, where the only mutual belonging is in our separate identity groups. Instead, let us use that sense of common loss to forge ever-stronger bonds between neighbours, classes, cultures, and nations, and resist the forces that seek to pull us apart. As King Charles said in his first speech, we must instead “help … to bring the marginal to the centre ground”; the needs of Lazarus must be at the heart of our attention. We need strong neighbourhoods and parishes to resist the pressures of globalisation, of racism and hate. The virtues and the faith of the late Queen, far from being old-fashioned and superseded, are what we need for our future, which will only be sustainable if we can co-operate, act sacrificially, and show steadfastness and loyalty.

So we clergy can wear our white vestments of hope with integrity, for in laying Elizabeth to rest and acknowledging the religious resources upon which she drew, we can affirm the value of a Christian monarchy as offering a world of many faiths and cultures a moral umbrella, in which we can imagine together a better world of real justice, peace, and co-operation.

May she rest in peace and rise in glory. And may her faithfulness inspire and steady us in the years to come.

Read it all.

"In laying Elizabeth to rest and acknowledging the religious resources upon which she drew, we can affirm the value of a Christian monarchy as offering a world of many faiths and cultures a moral umbrella." – Alison Milbank https://t.co/WnEAMOzIJD

— Ryan Haecker (@RyanHaecker) September 13, 2022

Moreover, they have put fetters on our feet and have bound your blessed limbs and the temples of God with disgraceful chains. . . . To men who are dedicated to God and attesting their faith with religious courage, such things are ornaments, not chains; nor do they bind the feet of the Christians for infamy but glorify them for a crown. . . .

Let cruelty, either ignorant or malignant, hold you here in its bonds and chains as long as it will, from this earth and from these sufferings you shall speedily come to the kingdom of heaven. The body is not cherished in the mines with couch and cushions, but it is cherished with the refreshment and solace of Christ. . . . Your limbs unbathed, are foul and disfigured with filth and dirt: but within they are spiritually cleansed. . . . There the bread is scarce; but man liveth not by bread alone, but by the word of God. Shivering, you want clothing; but he who puts on Christ is both abundantly clothed and adorned. . . .

—Read it all.

“No one can have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.”

St. Cyprian pic.twitter.com/aOc3Obb16x

— Parousia (@Thewarning9) September 6, 2022

Almighty God, who didst give to thy servant Cyprian boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of the same our Lord Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Episcopal Church celebrates Cyprian of Carthage, Bishop and Martyr, 258 https://t.co/Sc1E5woQ7C

Image: Window in St Cyprian's Clarence Gate. Photo by Lawrence OP (CC BY-NC 2.0), via Flickr pic.twitter.com/HxVmqHtZA4

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) September 13, 2022

Glory be to Thee, O Lord, my Creator. Glory be to Thee, O Jesus, my Redeemer. Glory be to Thee, the Holy Ghost, my Sanctifier, my Guide, and Comforter. All love, all glory, be to the high and undivided Trinity, Whose works are inseparable, and Whose dominion endureth world without end; to Thee, to Thee alone, and to Thy Son, and Holy Spirit, be glory for ever and ever.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Good morning 😄 #sunrise #tuesdayvibe #dublin @ThePhotoHour @StormHour pic.twitter.com/auCNfZ0yoX

— The Wild Massy 🌳 (@TheWildMassy) September 13, 2022

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came, not only on account of Jesus but also to see Laz′arus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Laz′arus also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

The next day a great crowd who had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” And Jesus found a young ass and sat upon it; as it is written,

“Fear not, daughter of Zion;
behold, your king is coming,
sitting on an ass’s colt!”

His disciples did not understand this at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that this had been written of him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Laz′arus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. The Pharisees then said to one another, “You see that you can do nothing; look, the world has gone after him.”

–John 12:9-19

Good morning lovely people , wishing you a fine Tuesday . Widemouth Bay , early morning , just me on the beach 🏖, lovely #Cornwall #WidemouthBay #seascape #beaches #StormHour #ThePhotoHour #SonyAlpha #waves #SonyLens #skies @VisitCornwall pic.twitter.com/LMOQlyT9CM

— Gary James (@Gazpics76) September 13, 2022