Pilgrim Ways

on.. In 1935 the first Westminster Cathedral pilgrimage came by special train, linking at Walsingham with a party of eighteen men and women, who had walked 117 miles from London along the ancient way. In 1938 Cardinal Hinsley led a gigantic pilgrimage of Catholic Youth, coinciding with the fourth centenary of the desecration of the Shrine.

The Fourteen Crosses In 1948, at the end of World War Two, as a prayer of penance, fourteen parties of priests and laymen set off on a fourteen day journey to Walsingham carrying fourteen nine-foot crosses of solid oak. Among their number was the young Fr.Derek Worlock, future Archbishop of Liverpool. They were met by Cardinal Griffin who used the occasion to fulfill the request made at Fatima that the country be dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In 1954, in the Marian Year, a new statue, carved by Marcel Barbeau, and mirroring the ancient representation on the Priory seal, was blessed in the Priory grounds by the Pope‟s representative in Britain, Archbishop O‟Hara. In the heart of the village of Walsingham, in Friday Market, an old pilgrims‟ hostelry was purchased and a Priest‟s House and Chapel were finally made available, suitably dedicated to the Annunciation of Our Lady.

Walsingham And Young People More recently, at the site of the Slipper Chapel, a vast new Chapel of Reconciliation has been constructed. At this ancient site of penance and absolution a new generation is learning again the importance of this sacrament of forgiveness. During the summer, in nearby fields, perhaps there is the greatest sign of hope. Canvas tents and caravans house hundreds of youngsters who have made Walsingham their annual destination for Catholic renewal. The Augustinian canons might not recognise their taste in music but they would certainly recognise their zeal and faith. Today, an estimated quarter of a million pilgrims visit Walsingham each year.

Erasmus described this corner of Norfolk as “a town maintained by scarcely anything else but the number of its visitors” and I suspect that little has changed. They come to pray at the two major Shrines: the Anglican Shrine, built around the Holy House, and the Catholic Shrine at the other end of the Holy Mile at the fourteenth-century Slipper Chapel. Here, too, is the Greek Orthodox Chapel of Saint Seraphim, created in 1967 at the disused village railway station. The Russian Orthodox have a shrine by the river. The iconography points us powerfully towards the orthodox tradition and its richness. Here also to remind us of the great Wesley brothers is the Georgian Methodist Chapel, which remains the oldest still in use in East Anglia. All of this is an ample back-drop for the enduring message of Walsingham, which is for people of all denominations and faiths. It is the message of encounter, the encounter experienced by the Lady Richeldis and which most of us desire as we search for the presence of God. Encounter The Rt.Revd.Eric Kemp, the Anglican Bishop of Chichester, developed the theme of encounter when he wrote that in Walsingham “many people find or have a fresh encounter with the Lord.” He adds that at Walsingham Anglicans and Catholics have re-encountered one another, not as rivals but in co-operation: “It was”, he said, “Martin Gillett, whose ashes now rest in the Slipper Chapel, who had the vision of Our Lady as a help rather than as a hindrance to unity and who founded the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The story of that Society, too, is a sign of hope.” In a country where more than 40% of our marriages now end in divorce and where 800,000 of our children have no contact with their