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Bishop Michael Curry has become a bit of a national treasure ever since he served up a stirring sermon at the royal wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry last weekend.
Now, he continues to spread his message of love all the way to The White House, where he led a prayer vigil on Thursday. The candlelit vigil in our nation’s capital was meant to help spread the message of “love of God and love of neighbor,” but was not political, according to reports.
Bishop Michael Curry brought chu’ch all up into the royal wedding, and we’re here for it
Check out the clip:
The Most Rev. Michael Curry, the first African American to preside over the Episcopal Church, wasted no time setting a fiery Black Baptist tone across the pond, barely taking the mic before opening his remarks with a quote from America’s Civil Rights icon during his sermon at the royal wedding.
“The late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, and I quote: ‘We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that, we will be able to make of this old world a new world. Love is the only way.
“There’s power in love,” he added. “Do not underestimate it. Don’t even over sentimentalize it. There’s power—power in love.”
READ MORE: It was lit: 8 unforgettable moments of the blackest royal wedding ever
Bishop Michael Curry went on to quote a medieval poem, the New Testament and, for the R&B Luther Vandross-loving set, what felt like snippets of the hit song, “Power of Love,” before digging into Jesus of Nazareth’s revolutionary movement “mandating people to live and love.”
Jesus insisted, Rev. Curry said, his voice and cadence rising like early Sunday morning in a Baptist pulpit, that “on these two, love of God and love of neighbor, hang all the law, all the prophets, everything that Moses wrote, everything from the holy prophets, everything in the scriptures, everything that God has been trying to tell the world. Love God, love your neighbors, and while you’re at it, love yourself.”
And then he did something that we can probably be sure has never been done in a royal wedding ever before: he gave a nod to the resiliency of America’s enslaved. Quoting the old slave spiritual, “There is a Balm in Gilead,” he drove home the power of love by making the point that enslaved blacks, even in captivity, understood why love “has the power to transform.”
Let’s hope POTUS was listening.