A pilgrimage to Walsingham.

Our Associate Editor, David Dooley and his wife Marie toured the Marian Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham on their most recent visit to England. He explains its background and history.

On May 15 of this year, my wife and I went in search of one of the favourite shrines of medieval England, Walsingham. "Very flat, Norfolk" was Noel Coward's dismissive comment on the country we were passing through; but he was not quite right. The landscape was rolling rather than flat, and its green hills dotted with white sheep were very attractive. Ignoring signs for Great Snoring and Little Snoring--these places actually exist--we followed those for Great Walsingham and Little Walsingham--and missed both. Eventually we drove down a road marked "Single track, with passing places," through--not over--a little river called the Stiffkey (pronounced "Stewkey", we learned), turned left, and in the middle of open fields, came to a large chapel and a deserted car park. One car was in evidence, however, and one venerable-looking man with a white beard who was presumably its owner. Instead of giving us directions about the way to the town, he offered to take us there and in fewer than ten minutes we were in the pa ved area called "Friday Market," in front of the Catholic pilgrimage headquarters in a fine Georgian building, Elmham House. My wife's cousin Mary was waiting for us there, delighted that we had arrived and ready to introduce us to the Wolverhampton group with which she had come.

1066 and all that

Richeldis, wife of the lord of the manor of Walsiugham, had a vision. She dreamt that the Blessed Virgin appeared to her and instructed her to build a replica of the house in Nazareth in which the Annunciation took place. The Blessed Virgin promised Richeldis that "Whoever seeks my help there, will not go away empty handed." Richeldis began to build such a house, not quite in the Mediterranean style since it was made of wood like other Saxon houses, at the village of Houghton St. Giles. But miraculously, legend tells us, the house was transported one night to Walsingham itself, a mile away. The house, called "England's Nazareth," soon became a popular place of pilgrimage. There were many cathedrals in France dedicated to Our Lady, but Walsingham was the only shrine in Europe dedicated to her. England was often referred to as Mary's dowry; and the opening lines of a hymn entitled "Mary of Walsiugham" allude to this tradition.

Mary of Walsingham, Mother of Jesus,

Pray for thy dowry, the land that we love.

Before the Reformation, England was known for its devotion to Mary; on the Sunday after Corpus Christi in 1391, in Westminster Abbey, King Richard II knelt amid a great throng of his subjects to rededicate England to Mary as her dowry. So many were drawn to the shrine that the Milky Way, with its thousands of stars, was referred to as the "Walsingham Way."

Richeldis's son Geoffrey provided money and land for a religious order to take care of the shrine, and so the Canons of St. Augustine set up a priory in 1153; it encased the wooden house, and continued to do so for four hundred years. Several chapels were built along the way, including one at King's Lynn, the nearest large town, and one at Houghton St. Giles dedicated to St. Catherine, the patron saint of pilgrimages. This chapel became known as the Slipper Chapel, presumably because it became a custom for pilgrims to remove their shoes there in order to walk the last mile to the shrine barefoot.

Henry VIII

Every English monarch before Henry VIII visited the shrine-Richard II made at least two pilgrimages to it- and in fact Henry was a frequent visitor. He provided a yearly stipend for the "King's priest to sing before Our Lady of Walsingham, and for a candle constantly burning." Like other pilgrims, he stopped at the Slipper Chapel to take off his shoes, and walked the last mile to the Shrine barefoot. But when Henry broke with Rome and dissolved the monasteries, disaster struck Walsingham. In 1538 or 1539, the priory and the wooden house were destroyed, the image of Our Lady was taken from its altar and burned, and the shrine was abandoned. Little remained of the monastery except the enormous stone arch which once framed the east window. It is still standing, and in front of it, a small wooden cross marks the spot where the Holy House formerly stood.

It was not until the end of the 19th century that Walsingham once again became a place of devotion. In the 1890's, a devout Anglican lady, Miss Charlotte Boyd while looking for a suitable house in which to found a sisterhood, saw some buildings which seemed to form part of a chapel. She was told that the building was known as the Slipper Chapel. She arranged to buy it, but before the deal was completed she had become a Catholic. Eventually she gave the chapel to the Benedictines of Downside, and restoration of it to its former state was begun. She did not live to see the restored Slipper Chapel in use, but in 1897 she had the consolation of seeing the first public pilgrimage to Walsingham take place. In August 1934 Cardinal Bourne led a pilgrimage of ten thousand people to the shrine, and from that date the Slipper Chapel became England's National Shrine to Our Lady.

Meanwhile, the Anglican Vicar, Alfred Hope Patten, restored devotion to Our Lady in his parish church. (There is also a Russian Orthodox Church in the village.) So Walsingham is unique in having two main shrines to Our Lady, one of them very elaborate, as we shall see.

The Catholic chapel

On the morning after our arrival, some sixty of us gathered in Friday Market to walk to the Slipper Chapel, saying the rosary and singing hymns as we went. We walked along a country road, with hedges on both sides, and white cowparsley growing often higher than our heads. When we neared the Chapel, a field full of black-faced rams gave us inquisitive looks. We arrived in time for a look around the shrine buildings, before Holy Mass at noon in the Chapel of Reconciliation. This is a large barn-like structure, built to harmonize with the local architecture, and capable of holding 500 people; when there are larger crowds, one of its walls can be pushed back so that people outside the building can see what is going on inside. Inside the Slipper Chapel itself is a statue of the Virgin and Child-the Catholic image of Our Lady of Walsingham (there are also Orthodox and Anglican representations) -carved by Marcel Barbeau in 1954. Smaller chapels beside the Slipper Chapel contain a triptych depicting the Crucifixion and a mosaic showing the descent of the Holy Spirit on Mary and the Apostles. The Way of the Cross in the shrine grounds consists of plain wooden crosses which groups of pilgrims have carried there; a friend of mine helped carry one from London, 135 miles away, in 1948 or 1949.

Our daily routine began with morning prayers at the Chapel of the Annunciation, and each day we had Mass at noon at the Chapel of Reconciliation near the Slipper Chapel. Other events included an evening candlelight procession, with the crowning of a statue of Our Lady in the grounds behind Elmham House; a celebration of the Sacrament of the Sick; and a visit to the ruins of the ancient priory, of which only enough is left to suggest how large and impressive it once was. Off to the side of the priory site, is a path leading to a packhorse bridge, the start of the route pilgrims used to take on their way back to Norwich. There was plenty of time for meditation and reflection and there were lots of opportunities for confession.

The Anglican shrine

On our own, we paid a visit to the Anglican shrine, of which we had heard a great deal. In 1997 we received a card from a good friend named Gordon, who is an Anglican clergyman. On the front of it was a picture of the Anglican shrine at Walsingham, and inside was a paean of praise for this modern version of an ancient place of pilgrimage, which had obviously made a very deep impression on him, because of its mingling of Anglican and Catholic traditions:

Here I am at the spiritual home of Catholic Anglicanism in England, a very special and holy place. Last evening we had a quiet time of devotion in the shrine chapel followed by Benediction; the Holy Sacrament which is used on these occasions is reserved in the tabernacle which you see up above the high altar. The next day we were back in the chapel for concelebrated Mass at noon. The statue of Our Lady of Walsingham lives in the Holy House within the Shrine Chapel--a structure rather like the Portiuncula at Assisi.

A little farther down the page, he wrote, "In spite of all that is going on around us, the Catholic tradition is still very much alive in the Church of England. Laus Deo!"

This shrine was built in 1931 by the Rev. Alfred Hope Patten, and as the details provided by my clergyman friend show, there is very little to differentiate it from a Catholic church--except that it is much more lavish than the Catholic buildings at Walsingham. The chapel has a holy well, with whose waters the faithful are sprinkled; in fact they are sent to sick people all over the world. There are fifteen side chapels, one for each mystery of the rosary--one for the presentation of Christ in the temple, another for the finding of Him in the temple, one for His death on the cross, and so on. The faithful are encouraged to light candles, "as have generations of pilgrims before us, giving honour and praise to Christ, and in thanksgiving for all those who have shone as lights in the world." There is a Way of the Cross in the shrine grounds. Most of these popish practices would fill a low church or Evangelical Anglican with abhorrence. Amusingly, a busload of French tourists arrived while we were there, and the ir reverent genuflections and contributions to the money boxes on display made it evident that they thought they were in a Catholic church.

The culmination of our visit to Walsingham was a solemn Mass on the Thursday we were leaving. The date was May 18th, and that was John Paul II's 80th birthday. The Chapel of Reconciliation was packed, and there were fourteen priests concelebrating. The homily paid eloquent tribute to the Holy Father, and the hymns in his honour--"Long live the Pope!" and another with the refrain "God bless our Pope"--rang out loud and clear.

Saying goodbye to our Wolverhampton friends, we reflected that this long-awaited pilgrimage had been far more rewarding than we had expected it to be, largely because it had been made in such congenial company.

To conclude, here is the prayer which Thomas More's good friend Erasmus composed on his own pilgrimage to Walsingham:

O Alone of all women, Mother and Virgin, Mother most blessed, Virgin most pure , now we, sinful as we are, come to see thee who art all pure; we salute thee; we honour thee as how we may with our humble offerings; may thy Son grant us that, imitating thy most holy manners, we also by the grace of the Holy Spirit may deserve spiritually to conceive the Lord Jesus in our inmost soul, and once conceived, never to lose him. Amen.