The Royal Wedding #1


Now, take a good look at the picture above. It’s the Early Learning Centre’s Royal Wedding Set.

I expect that you’ve already purchased your own set already. Taking a look at it though, what do you notice?

What I notice is that there’s something missing – namely, any connection with the church. They’ve managed a corgi, though I’m not sure that corgis will be welcome in Westminster Abbey. If they can do a corgi though, surely they could have done a shaggy archbishop. It would be nice to think that there were an additional set that you could buy featuring +++Rowan, the Dean of Westminster and perhaps the Bishop of London bearing the tiaras. Without them, there’s certainly something missing.

The Royal Wedding Set above is from HappyLand. What’s that I hear you say? “In HappyLand there is no church!“. Really?

I was very struck by a report that Mother Ruth passed on recently of St Mary’s work with children in 1937:

The Children’s Corner has been enriched by the addition of a miniature Sanctuary, with Altar, furnishings and frontals. These will be used for the purposes of instruction. The Sanctuary was made by Mr E Beckett, and the Altar furnishings by Miss A Littler, who also made a set of miniature vestments, placed beneath glass in a frame, each labelled with its proper designation.

Oh, how I’ve looked and looked for those minature vestments. I’m not so sure about placing them under a glass frame, but I do think that we need to give children the opportunity to play with holy things. There is something in that report which seems to be bang on to me.

Archbishops, vestments, marriage. All these are things that need to be played with, and not only by adults.

[Picture courtesy of the Early learning Centre – you can purchase the Royal Wedding Set here – £12 at time of writing, a £3 discount against the list price!]