![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Interesting....
Those of you who watched the Royal Wedding coverage (my favorite sound-bite: "It's a fairy tale for grownups") may have noticed that Charles and Camilla, during the service for the blessing of the union, said the general confession, requesting absolution for "manifold sins and wickedness."
Which would be pretty unremarkable most of the year: millions of Anglicans say the general confession every Sunday. Except during the Easter season (which runs from Easter Sunday to Pentecost) such as we are in now.
I don't know if this is an exception made for the rite of blessing, or whether Charles and Camilla were special. I'd be interested in knowing.
I'm glad they did: however they feel about each other, and whatever external pressures they were under, each had their share of lying and infidelity in their prior marriages that revolved around that relationship. To ask forgiveness for those is a good start; cleaning the slate, so to speak. And I am not quite cynic enough to believe that they didn't mean any of it, that they only said it because they had to.
(I suppose people would argue that that forgiveness only needed to be sought from specific individuals (which I am sure it has been), or that they needed only private, personal, absolution. However, in the ceremony of marriage, or even the blessing of a civil union, the congregation is called upon to bear witness and support the couple in their married life together.
There's a whole post in there about the role of community in the formation and supporting of faith, and the delicate line between support and control, but I'm too tired to think it through clearly.)
Which would be pretty unremarkable most of the year: millions of Anglicans say the general confession every Sunday. Except during the Easter season (which runs from Easter Sunday to Pentecost) such as we are in now.
I don't know if this is an exception made for the rite of blessing, or whether Charles and Camilla were special. I'd be interested in knowing.
I'm glad they did: however they feel about each other, and whatever external pressures they were under, each had their share of lying and infidelity in their prior marriages that revolved around that relationship. To ask forgiveness for those is a good start; cleaning the slate, so to speak. And I am not quite cynic enough to believe that they didn't mean any of it, that they only said it because they had to.
(I suppose people would argue that that forgiveness only needed to be sought from specific individuals (which I am sure it has been), or that they needed only private, personal, absolution. However, in the ceremony of marriage, or even the blessing of a civil union, the congregation is called upon to bear witness and support the couple in their married life together.
There's a whole post in there about the role of community in the formation and supporting of faith, and the delicate line between support and control, but I'm too tired to think it through clearly.)
no subject
no subject