National Days in the United States: An Anglican Perspective

Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving Day

The Anglican calendar is ordered first by the saving acts of God in Jesus Christ and by the life of the Church formed around those acts. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, the Lord’s Day, the Principal Feasts, and the Holy Days give Christian time its basic shape. Yet the Book of Common Prayer also recognizes that Christians live within particular nations, under civil authorities, sharing the blessings, responsibilities, sorrows, and public life of their neighbors. Alongside the Church’s hierarchy of holy days, the BCP 2019 therefore provides a small group of observances under the heading National Days.

For the United States, the Prayer Book identifies three such days with proper lessons: Memorial Day, observed on the Monday closest to May 28; Independence Day on July 4; and Thanksgiving Day on the fourth Thursday in November. These are not Principal Feasts or Red-Letter Holy Days, and they do not place the nation alongside the Church as another sacred institution. Rather, they give Christians appointed occasions to bring particular dimensions of national life before Almighty God in prayer.

The Church does not set aside the Gospel for National Days. She brings the Gospel to bear on them, and that is what makes these observances distinctly Christian. Memorial Day is brought beneath the Cross and the promise of Resurrection. Independence Day is brought beneath the lordship of Christ, the command to love enemies, and the hope of a better country. Thanksgiving Day is brought beneath the providence of God, the danger of forgetfulness, and gratitude for the spiritual mercies we have received in Jesus Christ.

This pattern teaches Christians how to love their country faithfully without worshiping it. Patriotism can be a genuine virtue when it means gratitude for one’s inheritance, affection for home and neighbor, willingness to serve the common good, readiness to sacrifice for others, and a desire that the nation act justly. It becomes disordered when national loyalty demands what belongs to God alone or when Christians become unable to acknowledge the sins, failures, and need for repentance of their own country. The Prayer Book’s National Days therefore offer neither civic religion nor political cynicism. They teach a patriotism ordered beneath the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Christians and the Nation

Scripture gives civil authority a real place within God’s ordering of human society. Saint Paul teaches that governing authority exists for the restraint of evil and the maintenance of public order, and he commands Christians to offer prayers “for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” (1 Timothy 2:2, ESV) Christian faith does not call believers to withdraw from public life. It calls them to pray for rulers, honor legitimate authority, seek justice, care for their neighbors, and contribute to the common good.

The Anglican tradition likewise distinguishes carefully between civil authority and the ministry of the Church. Article XXXVII of the Thirty-Nine Articles affirms the magistrate’s real authority in civil government while expressly denying to princes the ministering of God’s Word and Sacraments. It also recognizes the lawful use of civil authority to restrain evil and the lawfulness of Christian military service. This is neither political absolutism nor Christian anarchism. Civil government possesses real authority under God, but it does not become the Church or assume the Church’s sacramental and teaching office.

Jesus gives the controlling principle when he says, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21, ESV) Caesar has a legitimate claim, but not an unlimited one. The state may govern temporal affairs, administer law, protect public order, and exercise the authority proper to civil government. It does not become the Church, define the Gospel, administer the Sacraments, or command the Christian conscience against the Word of God. Caesar receives what properly belongs to Caesar, while God’s claim remains ultimate.

The New Testament also reminds Christians that earthly citizenship is not their final identity. Saint Paul tells the Philippians, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 3:20, ESV)That heavenly citizenship does not erase earthly responsibility. It orders it. A Christian can therefore love the United States precisely because he does not need the United States to be the Kingdom of God. He can receive its genuine goods with gratitude, defend its liberties, obey its laws, vote, hold office, serve in the armed forces, work for reform, tell the truth about its failures, and seek the welfare of his neighbors without asking the nation to save him.

The Church herself is gathered from “every tribe and language and people and nation.” (Revelation 5:9, ESV) Her Lord is not elected, her Creed is not subject to amendment by Congress, and her hope does not depend upon the permanence of any republic. That does not make Christians less serious citizens. It frees them to be better ones, because the nation can be loved as a genuine earthly good without being asked to bear the weight of ultimate hope. The nation matters, but it does not matter most.

National Days in the BCP 2019

The BCP 2019 does something important by providing distinct propers for the three American National Days rather than one generic patriotic observance. Memorial Day is shaped by remembrance, sacrifice, liberty, death, and resurrection. Independence Day is shaped by providence, liberty, righteousness, peace, justice, and heavenly citizenship. Thanksgiving Day is shaped by gratitude, creaturely dependence, work, rest, creation, and spiritual mercy in Christ.

The appointed readings reinforce those differences. Memorial Day uses Wisdom 3:1–9, Psalm 121, Revelation 7:9–17, and either John 11:21–27 or John 15:12–17. Independence Day appoints Deuteronomy 10:17–21, Psalm 145, Hebrews 11:8–16, and Matthew 5:43–48. Thanksgiving Day appoints Deuteronomy 8, Psalm 65:1–8 with verses 9–14 optional, James 1:17–27, and Matthew 6:25–33.

These are striking choices because the Prayer Book does not simply select passages that flatter the nation. It gives texts that place national life beneath realities larger than the nation itself: resurrection, justice for the vulnerable, love of enemies, the heavenly country, providence, gratitude, and trust in the Father. The National Days are therefore not occasions on which the Church merely blesses whatever the nation already thinks about itself. They are occasions on which Scripture examines national life.

The Prayer Book’s Proper Prefaces reinforce the same theological ordering. Its supplemental Preface for Memorial Day centers peace in the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. The supplemental Preface for Independence Day gives thanks that humanity was created in God’s image to serve him in freedom, justice, and peace, while directing Christians toward their eternal citizenship in his heavenly Kingdom. The supplemental Preface for Thanksgiving Day praises the goodness of creation and God’s gifts of sun and rain, seed-time and harvest as signs of his constant care. The National Days are therefore interpreted from beginning to end through the Christian confession of God, creation, redemption, and the Kingdom.

Memorial Day: Remembrance Beneath the Cross

Memorial Day is the most solemn of the three American National Days. It is a day of memory, but Christian remembrance is never merely backward-looking. The Church remembers the fallen while standing beneath the Cross and looking toward the Resurrection. Many Christians are veterans, members of military families, sons and daughters of those who served, or neighbors who have known the cost of war in flesh and blood. Graves marked by flags, names read aloud at ceremonies, folded flags presented to families, and empty chairs at tables are not abstractions. They represent lives given and grief carried.

The Prayer Book’s Collect establishes the theological frame:

“O King and Judge of the nations: We remember before you with grateful hearts the men and women of our armed forces, who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy; grant that we may not rest until all the people of this land share the benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, now and for ever. Amen.” (BCP 2019, p. 636)

The order matters. Before the Church remembers the nation’s dead, she confesses God as “King and Judge of the nations.” The fallen are remembered gratefully, liberty is received as a gift, and the living are immediately reminded that freedom carries obligations. The prayer refuses to let remembrance remain sentimental. Those who inherit liberty are called to exercise it responsibly and to seek its benefits for others.

Christian remembrance also does not romanticize war. War is brutal, tragic, and destructive. It tears apart bodies, families, minds, and communities. The Church may honor courage, duty, service, and sacrifice without pretending that war itself is good. The Great Litany captures this balance by praying for the protection of those who serve in the armed forces while also asking God to make wars cease and give peace and concord among the nations.

The appointed Gospel from John 15 gives one of the texts most naturally associated with sacrificial service: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13, ESV) Yet the Church must hear those words first in their own context. Jesus speaks them on the night before his Cross. Within hours he will lay down his life not simply for loyal friends who have proven themselves worthy, but for sinners, for disciples who will flee, deny him, and fail him.

Christ’s sacrifice is therefore unique. The death of a soldier is not the atoning death of Jesus Christ, and no human sacrifice should be confused with the once-for-all sacrifice through which sinners are reconciled to God. Yet the willingness of one person to risk or surrender life so that others may live can genuinely reflect, however faintly and imperfectly, the self-giving love revealed supremely in Christ. The Cross remains the measure and source by which every lesser act of sacrificial love is understood.

Psalm 121 adds another dimension. “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:1–2, ESV) It is a psalm of the Keeper who neither slumbers nor sleeps, the God who watches over the going out and the coming in of his people. For military families, veterans, and those who have sent loved ones into danger, that language can carry unusual weight. It does not promise that faithful people will never die. Scripture gives no such promise. It does promise that those who belong to God are never beyond his keeping, even through the valley of death.

Revelation 7 then lifts remembrance into the final hope of the Gospel. John sees “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,” standing before the throne and before the Lamb. (Revelation 7:9, ESV) The Lamb shepherds them, guides them to springs of living water, and God wipes away every tear from their eyes. The final multitude is not gathered beneath one flag but before one throne, and their cry makes the contrast unmistakable: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:10, ESV)This vision prevents Memorial Day from becoming simply an exercise in national nostalgia. Salvation belongs not to a nation or an army but to God and to the Lamb.

The Collect page directs Memorial Day to the Preface of Burial, which grounds Christian remembrance in Christ’s victory over death and the hope of everlasting life. The supplemental Proper Preface for Memorial Day adds another explicitly Christian emphasis by proclaiming that through the sacrifice of the Son upon the Cross, those who turn to him amid the tribulation of war find their peace in him. The Church therefore does not celebrate death as though death itself were glorious. She remembers the dead beneath Christ’s Cross and beneath the promise that death will not have the final word.

The same Collect that honors those who “ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy” also speaks of “true freedom”and its “disciplines.” Freedom purchased at great cost ought not to be reduced to self-indulgence. Memorial Day therefore becomes an occasion not only to remember those who died, but to ask whether the living are using faithfully what was entrusted to them. The best tribute to inherited liberty is not simply gratitude for the past but faithful stewardship in the present.

Independence Day: Liberty Under the Lordship of Christ

If Memorial Day asks what we do with inherited sacrifice, Independence Day asks what we do with inherited liberty. The Prayer Book’s Collect is concise and theologically careful:

“Lord God, by your providence our founders won their liberties of old: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to exercise these liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (BCP 2019, p. 636)

Two things stand out. First, liberty is placed under divine providence. The Collect does not attribute the founding of the nation simply to human brilliance or virtue. Human agents acted, sacrificed, reasoned, fought, governed, and made decisions, but the Prayer Book places even those acts beneath the providential rule of God. Second, the prayer does not merely ask that liberty be preserved. It asks for grace to exercise liberty “in righteousness and peace.” Freedom itself requires moral formation.

The appointed Gospel makes that petition more demanding. Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44, ESV) On any day of the year this is difficult. On a national day celebrating political independence won in conflict with an adversary, it is deliberately searching. The Church does not set aside the Gospel for National Days. She brings the Gospel to bear upon them, refusing to let any human loyalty, including patriotism, replace the impartial love of God.

Jesus explains the command by pointing to the character of the Father: “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45, ESV) The Christian therefore cannot draw the circle of love only around those who share his nationality, politics, loyalties, or affections. Verse 48 presses the command further: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48, ESV) The Greek word teleios(TEH-lay-os) carries the sense of completeness or maturity. Jesus is not describing anxious perfectionism. He is calling his disciples toward a mature love that reflects the wholeness of the Father’s own goodness.

That has direct implications for patriotic life. Christians may love their fellow citizens, honor those who serve, defend the nation from genuine threats, and oppose injustice. None of those obligations gives permission to hate enemies, deny their humanity, or allow political opposition to become the boundary of Christian love. Love of enemy does not require pretending that every position is equally true or every action equally moral. It does require that even the person we oppose remains a person made in the image of God and a proper object of Christian prayer.

The Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy 10 reinforces the point. Moses describes the Lord as “God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.” He then says that God “executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner.” (Deuteronomy 10:17–18, ESV) The God whose providence is invoked on Independence Day is not a tribal deity serving one people’s self-interest. He is the impartial Judge who cares for those human societies are often tempted to overlook.

The Hebrew word translated sojourner, ger (GARE), refers broadly to a resident foreigner living without the ordinary kinship protections enjoyed by the native-born. Ancient Israel’s social and legal arrangements do not correspond neatly to modern American immigration categories, so the text should not be reduced to a ready-made partisan policy statement. The theological principle, however, is unmistakable: the people of God are commanded to reflect the justice and mercy of the God who is not partial. Christians may disagree prudently about particular laws and public policies while remaining bound to treat every person with basic human dignity and to reject contempt for the vulnerable.

Psalm 145 then orders patriotic gratitude correctly: “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.” (Psalm 145:3, ESV) The psalm does not teach the greatness of America or any other earthly nation. The greatness in view belongs to God, whose kingdom is “an everlasting kingdom.” (Psalm 145:13, ESV) Earthly nations are real and important, but none is everlasting.

Hebrews 11 completes the picture by describing Abraham and the patriarchs as “strangers and exiles on the earth.”(Hebrews 11:13, ESV) They sought “a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” (Hebrews 11:16, ESV) This does not mean they despised the earthly land in which God had placed them. They lived there, built lives there, buried their dead there, and received earthly promises there. Yet they held the land with an open hand because they knew it was not their final home.

That is the proper Christian posture toward the United States: genuine love and gratitude, held with an open hand. Heavenly citizenship does not produce civic disengagement. The person who knows that the nation is not ultimate is free to participate seriously in public life without turning politics into religion. Christians may vote, serve, advocate, build, correct, mourn, and hope, all while remembering that the city with foundations is the one whose designer and builder is God.

The supplemental Proper Preface for Independence Day makes the same theological movement. It gives thanks that God created us in his image to serve him on earth in freedom, justice, and peace, and it immediately lifts the Church beyond every earthly citizenship toward the hope of eternal citizenship in his heavenly Kingdom. Political liberty therefore has a genuine but subordinate place in Christian life. It is a gift to be exercised under God, not an ultimate possession by which human beings save themselves.

The Independence Day Collect gives the Church a remarkably complete prayer for citizenship. It contains gratitude that looks backward, righteousness that looks inward, and peace that looks outward. The question is not simply whether we possess liberty, but whether the liberty we possess is being exercised faithfully.

Thanksgiving Day: Gratitude and Dependence

Thanksgiving Day turns from sacrifice and liberty toward the more basic question of gratitude. What have we received, and from whom have we received it? The Prayer Book answers with a Collect that moves from ordinary mercies toward the Gospel:

“Most merciful Father, we humbly thank you for all your gifts so freely bestowed upon us: for life and health and safety, for strength to work and leisure to rest, for all that is beautiful in creation and in human life; but above all we thank you for our spiritual mercies in Christ Jesus our Lord; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (BCP 2019, p. 637)

The prayer begins with ordinary gifts: life, health, safety, work, rest, creation, and the goodness present in human life. Christianity does not despise such things as spiritually inferior. They are gifts of God and should be received with thanksgiving. Yet the Collect deliberately rises toward its theological center: “but above all we thank you for our spiritual mercies in Christ Jesus our Lord.” A full table is good. Family and friendship are good. Work, rest, land, beauty, and material provision are good. But the greatest mercy is Christ.

The appointed reading from Deuteronomy 8 is particularly searching because it warns Israel about the spiritual danger of abundance. After eating and being filled, after houses are built and possessions increase, the heart may say, “My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.” (Deuteronomy 8:17, ESV) Moses responds by commanding Israel to remember the Lord, because it is God who gives the power to obtain wealth.

Prosperity creates its own temptation. Need often drives people toward prayer, while abundance can create the illusion of self-sufficiency. That makes Deuteronomy 8 an especially fitting American Thanksgiving text. A prosperous and technologically powerful society can speak the language of gratitude while quietly believing that it has secured its blessings by its own intelligence, industry, markets, institutions, military strength, or sheer competence. Biblical thanksgiving interrupts that illusion by naming the Giver.

James says the same thing more directly: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” (James 1:17, ESV) The appointed Gospel then gives Jesus’ words against anxiety: “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink.” (Matthew 6:25, ESV) The Father who feeds the birds and clothes the lilies knows what his children need. Thanksgiving therefore becomes an annual confession of creaturely dependence.

The meal itself can teach this if we pay attention. Food arrives on the table through soil, rain, sunlight, animals, farmers, workers, transportation, commerce, cooking, and countless forms of human cooperation. Beneath all those secondary causes stands providence. Thanksgiving is not merely an emotion of contentment produced by having enough. It is the recognition that life itself is received.

The supplemental Proper Preface for Thanksgiving makes this dependence explicit by praising God for the wonders of creation and for the gifts of sun and rain, seed-time and harvest, which manifest his constant love and care for all that he has made. The Church therefore gives thanks not only for the meal immediately before us, but for the whole created order upon which human life depends and over which God continues to exercise his providential care.

Gratitude should also turn outward. James refuses to separate receiving God’s gifts from care for those in need. Thanksgiving that ends with our own abundance has stopped too soon. The person who gives thanks for food should care about the hungry. The person who gives thanks for family should notice the lonely. The person who gives thanks for security should remember the vulnerable. Christian gratitude naturally becomes generosity because the gifts of God are received not merely for private possession but for faithful stewardship and love of neighbor.

Patriotism Without Idolatry

Taken together, the three American National Days offer a remarkably coherent Anglican theology of patriotism. Memorial Day teaches us to remember sacrifice beneath the Cross and Resurrection. Independence Day teaches us to receive liberty beneath the lordship of Christ, with righteousness, peace, justice, heavenly citizenship, and love of enemies. Thanksgiving Day teaches us to receive abundance as gift and to remember that our deepest mercies are in Jesus Christ.

None of these observances asks Christians to despise the nation. They do the opposite by teaching us how to love it rightly. Christian patriotism need not be embarrassed by affection for country. Love of place, gratitude for inherited institutions, reverence for sacrifice, willingness to defend one’s neighbors, respect for law, concern for public virtue, and desire for the flourishing of one’s nation can all be genuine expressions of love of neighbor.

Patriotism must nevertheless remain subordinate to the first commandment. When national loyalty demands silence where Scripture commands speech, Christians must obey God. When national myths obscure injustice, truth must be told. When political parties demand a loyalty that belongs only to Christ, the Church must refuse. When Christians begin to speak as though an election, a court, a party, or a political movement carries the fate of the Kingdom of God, politics has been asked to bear a weight it cannot carry.

The alternative is not withdrawal but right ordering. Christians should participate seriously in civic life. They should pray for rulers, vote responsibly, hold office where called, serve in the military where conscience permits, work in public institutions, care for communities, advocate for justice, build strong families and neighborhoods, and seek peace. They should do these things precisely as people whose ultimate allegiance has already been claimed by Jesus Christ. The Church does not become less capable of loving her earthly country by confessing Christ as King. She becomes capable of a healthier patriotism because every earthly loyalty has been placed where it belongs.

Praying for Those Who Govern

The Prayer Book’s concern for national life extends beyond the three National Days. Anglican prayer regularly forms Christians to intercede for civil authority. In the Daily Office, the Church asks God to guide those who govern and lead them in the way of justice and truth. The Great Litany likewise prays for those in authority, for the armed forces, for peace among nations, and for God to make wars cease.

This discipline is politically important because it does not depend upon whether we supported the people currently governing us. Saint Paul’s command to pray for rulers was given to Christians who could hardly assume that the rulers of their world shared Christian convictions. Prayer for rulers is therefore not endorsement but obedience. Christians should be able to pray sincerely for a president they opposed, a governor they distrust, a judge whose reasoning they reject, or a legislature whose decisions they lament. Prayer does not require pretending disagreements are insignificant. It means placing rulers before God and asking that they govern with justice, wisdom, restraint, humility, and truth.

This is one of the most important political disciplines the Church can recover because it trains Christians to see rulers neither as saviors nor as demons, but as fallen human beings exercising temporary authority under the judgment of God. It also reminds the Church that political opposition does not suspend the command to love our neighbors or pray for those who govern us.

Observing the National Days

Because the BCP provides Collects and appointed lessons for the three American National Days, Christians can begin simply by allowing the Prayer Book itself to shape their observance. The days are placed within Christian prayer so that civic remembrance, liberty, and thanksgiving are not left entirely to secular custom or political rhetoric.

On Memorial Day, pray the Collect on page 636 and read the appointed lessons. Remember by name those who died in military service where such remembrance is personal. Visit a cemetery or memorial if that belongs to your family or community tradition. Let gratitude remain sober, let human sacrifice point toward Christ without being confused with Christ’s unique sacrifice, and allow grief to be carried beneath the hope of Resurrection.

On Independence Day, pray the Collect asking for grace to exercise liberty in righteousness and peace. Read Deuteronomy 10, Hebrews 11, and Matthew 5. Give thanks for genuine political goods while asking whether freedom is being used faithfully. Let love of country remain compatible with care for the vulnerable, truthfulness about national failures, and prayer for those regarded as enemies.

On Thanksgiving Day, pray the Collect on page 637 before the meal. Read Deuteronomy 8 and allow its warning against prosperity-induced forgetfulness to examine the heart. Name particular gifts rather than speaking only in vague terms of gratitude, and remember that the greatest mercies are those given in Christ. Let thanksgiving become hospitality, generosity, and concern for those who have less.

The National Days do not constitute a separate liturgical season. On the Collect pages, the BCP directs Memorial Day to the Preface of Burial and Independence Day and Thanksgiving Day to the Preface of Trinity Sunday. The Prayer Book’s supplemental Proper Prefaces also provide texts specifically for Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving Day, emphasizing respectively Christ’s peace amid the tribulation of war, freedom and heavenly citizenship, and God’s providential care in creation and harvest. The appointed Collects, readings, and Prefaces therefore allow each civic observance to be interpreted distinctly through the Gospel rather than creating a generic civic liturgy detached from the Christian year.

Conclusion

The National Days of the United States occupy a modest but meaningful place in the BCP 2019. Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving Day are not Christian feasts in the same sense as Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, or the Holy Days of the saints. They belong instead to that part of Anglican prayer in which the Church brings the circumstances of ordinary national life before the throne of God, which is precisely why they matter.

The Church does not set aside the Gospel for National Days. She brings the Gospel to bear on them. Memorial Day is interpreted by the Cross and Resurrection. Independence Day is interpreted by heavenly citizenship, justice, and love of enemies. Thanksgiving Day is interpreted by providence, dependence, generosity, and gratitude in Christ. In that way the Prayer Book teaches Christians how to love their country without worshiping it.

The United States is neither the Kingdom of God nor irrelevant to Christian discipleship. It is the particular nation in which American Christians have been placed by providence, among neighbors they are commanded to love and within institutions they may be called to serve, defend, correct, reform, and pray for according to their vocations. We therefore give thanks where thanks are due, remember the dead, honor courage, cherish liberty, pray for those in authority, seek justice, confess national sins, care for our neighbors, work for peace, and receive abundance with gratitude.

Through all of it, the Church remembers the truth that keeps patriotism in its proper place: nations rise and nations fall, but Jesus Christ is Lord. Our earthly citizenship matters because it is a real but temporary calling under his reign, while our final citizenship is in the better country for which Abraham longed, the city whose designer and builder is God. Our final hope is not that America will endure forever, but that the crucified and risen King already reigns and will bring his everlasting Kingdom in all its fullness.