Press Releases05 Mar 08

Address by the Rt Revd Robin Eames OM at a Service in St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh

Commentators have given various descriptions to Solomon’s prayer in 1 Kings which we heard as our Old Testament reading a few moments ago.  Some have interpreted it as a cry for justice to the people Israel – a cry linked to their search as a people for identity and meaning.  Some have seen in those words a primeval declaration of faith – an aligning of the primeval to the national consciousness.  Again, some have interpreted those words as an indication of Solomon’s political ambition as a leader to provide a vision for a somewhat divided people.  Whatever our view, of one thing we can be certain, Solomon captures in a way which seems so appropriate to this Service the realism of a faith which moves from today’s experience into tomorrow’s hope…

Mr. Hewitt in his Introduction has reminded us of the historic significance of this Service.  He used these words:

It is a Service of Thanksgiving and Celebration on which the accent is on young people past, present and future ... ’

I believe in the midst of our reflection on the history of the Royal Schools, the history which has brought us to this moment, in the midst of our tributes and worship, that must be uppermost in our minds.  The young people who, in the Royal Schools of today, walk where past generations have experienced the same principles for which we give thanks but who embody all the richness of the past with that eternal optimism of youth – the hope of the future.  The history of our Schools shows how the ancient vision of our founder has taken us through the ups and downs of national and international life – how the vision has become relevant to each generation – and now how today in the Solemn Act of Re-Commitment – that same vision is given new urgency for our future.  But the Covenant, the historic ethos, all the tapestry of the past will only become a truly living thing if it is seen in the hearts, the minds, the spirits of young people – of the young people of the Royal Schools today – and of generations yet unborn.  It is that relevance of moving today’s realities into tomorrow’s hopes that John Dryden captured in his words:

“The people’s prayer, the glad diviner’s theme,
The young men’s vision, and the old men’s dream . . .”

History alone will tell future generations about what we are doing here today and how the Solemn Covenant influences the Royal Schools of tomorrow remains to be seen but the centre of this worship is about the eternity of God, the vision passed on to us by the past and surely, about young lives each making their own interpretation of that God, those agendas of excellence, those stirrings of the soul taking young people of vision out into a new island, a new Europe and a new world which will make devastating demands on their integrity, their faith and on what they take with them of the ethos of the Royal Schools.  That ethos so genuinely captured in the Solemn Covenant of today is as much about the truth of character, courage and freedom as it is about academic excellence.  The American psychologist B.F. Skinner could have had our Covenant in mind when he wrote in 1964

It is not easy to speculate on what social and economic mores will determine the fabric of adult lives now being fashioned in the Royal Schools today.  Nor is it easy to fathom what future education policies will decide is important in the list of priorities for excellence, but at the centre of this Service is the intrinsic reminder of the role of faith.  In the history we celebrate the centrality of Christian values has been an ever-present theme.  So it is today.  But as we look ahead into a world of increasing pluralism ‘new hands at the helm’ of our schools will undoubtedly face serious questions about faith values.  What the Covenant says today must always remind those ‘new hands’ of the eternal truths of love, understanding, forgiveness and above all, vision, which stem from the origins of all we have said in this Service – the eternal truths of Christ.  A growing complexity of faith issues and non-Christian dogma must never be allowed to erode the richness and the open hospitality of that Christian ethos. 

So let this spirit of celebration today be the spring-board for new generations of young people of the Royal Schools as they take that eternal truth into lives of service, leadership and influence across this new world.  Let their education in those eternal truths go with them wherever the path of life takes them.  May the words of our text go from this Service as the real vision for the Royal Schools of Ulster.