On April, 9, 2021, Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband of 73 years, passed away. During those days there was a photo that went all around the world. The photo was of the Queen sitting alone in the choir of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
At the intimate ceremony with only 30 close family members in attendance, the Queen sat alone due to COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing guidelines which required her to be within a “bubble” from those in attendance, in order to be 6 feet from them.
Wilfred Frost, CNBC anchor, said on that morning that “the queen’s ‘bubble’ was her husband prior to his death”. He added that her being alone at his funeral is quite poignant, since “she will literally have no shoulder to cry on.”
However, that was not the only photo of that ceremony that went all around the world. There was another photo as well. This photo was of the letter and the wreath that the Queen placed on top of the Duke of Edinburgh’s casket. The envelope that holds the letter says: “In loving memory – Lilibet.” And apparently in that handwritten letter, she says: “Grief is the price we pay for love.” The full quote that contains “grief is the price we pay for love” was written by Dr. Colin Murray Parkes and is found in his book Bereavement: Studies of Grief in Adult Life.
Beyond the meaning that those words had for the Queen (for in that letter her grief probably meant sadness rather than suffering,) or for the author of the book (the book is about death, so if you do not want to suffer the death of a loved one, you should love no one), it is also a phrase that can help us as Christians, since being Christian and suffering are intimately related.
The Christian life should be marked by the Cross, which means that in various ways Christians add to the sufferings that life already has in itself, more sufferings in order to live according to the Gospel However, all those sufferings must be sufferings caused by love. They must be the price we pay for loving Jesus Christ and for wanting to be His disciple.
This is the meaning of penance; not to suffer for the sake of suffering, but to suffer in order to love; to learn how to love, in order to be able to love as Jesus deserves to be loved. Hence, penances should be focused on helping us to renounce our selfishness in order to make our lives a total surrender to Jesus out of love. They should be aimed at keeping us away from anything that could possibly steal any part of our heart from Jesus.
