Being part of a community is essential to human life. We find community in our friendships, families, colleagues and classmates, the places we live, and in our churches. Living in community helps shape our character and behaviours, and as a community of God we find our identity in how we grow in our faith together.

Being a community of God is also about being a community of love, belonging and togetherness.

As we learn to see the nature of God in the face of others, our communities in turn reflect God’s character to the world.

Many communities will have planned street parties, church services, and other celebrations for this Coronation weekend. We pray that in these occasions we, with King Charles, may recognize the face of Christ in those with whom we share them.

This appeal in the Psalms for God’s assistance has been at the centre of Christian prayer for centuries. It is a good prayer to pray on waking up, on being assigned a difficult task, or when in particular need. We are always in need of God’s assistance, whatever our endeavour.

As we pray with The King on this Coronation Day, let us also remember that all that we have, and all that we are, comes from the love of God.

We pray that we may always hear and strive to take up God’s invitation to be with him in our lives, and that we, together with The King, may receive grace to carry out what we are called to do.

Jesus offers us a wonderful example of self-control. Despite his own human fears – shown most clearly in the Garden of Gethsemane – he offered himself so that we might have eternal life.

In all circumstances of life we are all called to self- control. As we remember the important tasks set before our King, and the challenges he will face, we pray that the fruit of self-control, which informs all our actions and decisions, will give him patience and strength to act always in love and obedience to God and in service to others.

There must be very few people who can appreciate the heavy burden that being Sovereign brings.

And of course the burden can only be carried by one individual at a time. Before his accession The King had been readying himself for the burden of kingship for many years.

As The King prepares for his coronation, we pray that he and The Queen Consort may know the presence of God and be supported by God’s Spirit. In our reading today Jesus refers to himself as ‘gentle and humble in heart’. In him, The King, The Queen Consort – and indeed all of us who bear heavy burdens – will find rest for our souls.

Our efforts to walk before God in faithfulness and uprightness of living are rooted in our response to God who, in spite of our waywardness, is faithful towards us. ‘Great is thy faithfulness,’ the old hymn puts it, drawing on words from Lamentations.

In the Coronation Service, the King’s Oath declares that he will ‘cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all [his] judgements’. This theme runs like a silver thread through the ceremony.

As we pray with King Charles that God will guide him in these great responsibilities, we also think of our own desire to remain faithful to God’s will for us.

Generosity is a joyful activity. Often generosity is a response of gratitude, when we offer ourselves and our resources to something we care about or believe in. An act of giving in whatever form expresses love and brings hope. As beings made in the image of God, generosity is in our nature as well. We are called to be imitators of Christ whose life was itself a gift of self-giving love.

All of us have something to give. And there is beauty in the simple action of giving which speaks volumes beyond the act itself, because it comes from the heart.

One of the phrases that is attributed to St David of Wales is his encouragement to his community to ‘be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things that you have seen and heard with me’. They remind us that every instant of our lives affords an opportunity to be drawn closer to the God who loves us, and that small steps of kindness are indications of the Spirit at work in our lives.

The life of service to which King Charles is dedicated displays on the public stage the values of love and kindness that each of us can demonstrate through what the poet Wordsworth describes as ‘little, nameless, unremembered acts / Of kindness and of love’.

We have all been reminded to be patient many times throughout our lives. Living in patience and peace with one another is not always easy, and is a discipline that, appropriately, takes much practice to cultivate.

Nevertheless, patience is among the Fruit of the Spirit listed by St Paul, and something we should aim to embrace whenever we can, looking to God who remains ever patient with us. All Christian people are also called to be patient and persistent in prayer.

Let us ask God for this gift today.

‘Peace’ is the word most often used to translate the Hebrew word shalom, which appears 250 times in the Old Testament. Surely a word used so often conveys so much more than what might be called ‘an absence of war’.

The Hebrew word shalom communicates at its heart a sense of total harmony. Even inanimate objects could be in shalom. For example, in the First Book of Kings when King Solomon finished all the work on the Temple, it was in shalom. Later, the prophet Zechariah declared, ‘Your king will make shalom among the nations’. 

In these days of prayer, let us pray that our nation under The King may hold fast to the promise of peace.

The life of our King will be marked, like all our lives, with a balance of pleasure and hardship, of delight and challenge. Experiencing joy in all things can be difficult for anyone. But joy goes much deeper than happiness or cheerfulness. It is a rootedness in joyful love of God and those around us. It has the power to uplift the soul even amid life’s pain and challenges.

As King Charles prepares for his coronation, we pray with him that he may continually seek, find, and radiate joy in all things.