There’s no doubt that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry rocked the royal wedding with a transformative message of love and unity. I am still savoring the delicious Africanism woven into the traditional royal ceremony, and I think we can all agree that Episcopalian Bishop Michael Curry was the ingredient that made the flavor official.
On Good Morning America Tuesday, Curry sat down with Robin Roberts to recap his feelings and impressions from the historic ceremony.
“You’re the only bishop with groupies!” Roberts said as she began the interview while a throng of middle-aged women, and members of the clergy wearing priestly collars, in the audience waved signs in the air printed with the words “#Love Is the Way.”
For Curry, the groupies were as much of a surprise to him as the invitation extended to him, on behalf of Markle and Prince Harry, by the archbishop of Canterbury.
“I thought it was April Fools’ Day when the phone rang,” Curry told Roberts on the morning talk show. In fact, he had to keep the news a secret even from his wife for a month before he was allowed to share the news with her alone. And like her husband, she was stunned at the news.
Curry gave the couple an outline of the speech, which lasted nearly 14 minutes, passionately incorporating struggles of slavery and the ideals of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The message, Curry said, was a reflection of the love the new duke and duchess so obviously feel for each other, adding:
Think about the people who have made a difference in your life. It’s people who loved Jesus. People who have made a difference in the world for good have lived off of the passion of love—they have cared about changing society and cared about changing lives.
Curry, a fourth-generation preacher, said that he heard his “grandmother’s voice in his ears, singing the old hymn ‘There Is a Balm in Gilead,’” as he gave the sermon for the royal nuptials. The bishop’s voice is being felt by folks around the world. Even comedian Kenan Thompson spoofed Curry on Saturday Night Live—a performance that tickled the bishop, he told Roberts:
“Love is the way,” Curry reiterated near the end of his segment with Roberts as he recalled looking out over the most diverse crowd at a royal wedding in quite some time—possibly the most diverse in history.
“People of all stripes and types were organized around love,” he said.
Godspeed to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as they endeavor to become the living embodiment of Curry’s message for healing old wounds and transforming society not just throughout the Commonwealth but around the world.