Well said, Wills – and not for the first time

For the National Earthquake Memorial Service in 2011, Prince William came prepared with eight words that resonated as much as anything said about the tragedy: ‘‘Grief is the price we pay for love.’’

It wasn’t his quote, originally. Rightly, and wisely, he attributed the words to his grandmother – and even then she hadn’t delivered them herself.

The message from the Queen was read on her behalf by the British ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyert, at a

service of remembrance in New York for 250 British citizens after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Nevertheless, they evoked tears. And eight years ago in post-quake Christchurch, they again rang true.

William has now found himself back in the city at a fresh time of hurt. This time, caused by no act of God but of hatred.

At Al Noor Masjid where 42 people at prayer had been slain in an act of murderous intolerance he spoke, as he reliably does, without oratorical flair. But it seemed sincere. More than that, heartfelt.

It would be hard, and futile, to try to count the voices who had already made the point, as he did, that this was a terrorist act intended to to promote fear and distrust but which instead had brought an outpouring of love, bringing people closer together.

But then, in clear reference to his mother’s death, he acknowledged that grief can change outlooks but doesn’t change who we essentially are.

‘‘If you let it, it will reveal who you are . . . It can help you live up to the values you espouse.’’ Yes.

But while William’s words set off a tuning fork of moral recognition, it was hard to say the same for the small gathering of members of two Destiny Churchaffiliated groups, Man Up and Legacy, who met opposite the Deans Ave mosque the day before with, in the words of one onlooker, loudspeakers ‘‘blasting across the road at the mosque’’.

They were noisily reclaiming Christchurch ‘‘for Jesus’’ in reaction – retaliation? – to the national broadcast of the first Muslim call to prayer by the mosque following the March 15 terror attack. The Christian group was offended that the broadcast Muslim call had sent out a message that Allah was the one true god.

OK, there’s a case to be made that they, too, were seeking to live up to the values they espoused. But their methodology was at best wrongheaded, at worst belligerent to the point of being repellent.

The intention was to reclaim Christchurch as a Christian city. The subtext was that all this postmassacre talk of unity and support only goes so far when a right of reply urgently needs to be invoked over the issue of whose god is better than whoever else’s.

It is good to be able to report that people from the mosque came out and invited some representatives in, and that after a meeting the group dispersed without issues.

It’s important to live up to the values we espouse. But there’s a man, right now, who is probably feeling that that’s exactly what he had been doing, too, when he himself killed a bunch of people. Our values need to be calibrated with love. And respect.