We used to celebrate Whit Monday in England. Then politics took over, and the May Bank Holiday was fixed instead to the last Monday in the month. Rather a pity this year, since the weekend of Pentecost was warm and sunny, but Bank Holiday Monday was chilly and overcast. Still, pilgrims travelled from all over the country and beyond to celebrate at "The National" – the annual celebration at the Anglican Shrine in Walsingham.
Bishop Martin Warner Presides
Martin Warner, former Shrine Administrator, is now Suffragan Bishop of Whitby, and he returned to Norfolk to be Principal Celebrant.
His successor is the Australian super-showman, Lindsay Urwin, until recently bishop of Horsham; and his successor too was present among the concelebrants.
Organising the Procession
We made a weekend of it, Jane and I, staying in a B&B in the south of the county. That involved a longish drive to find a friendly church on Sunday, but it was worth the effort. Eye is one of the loveliest churches in East Anglia, its interior restored and beautified by Ninian Comper. The parish priest also has Walsingham connections, for he worked at the Shrine from '94-'96. Now he runs a very friendly and welcoming church, and his sermon (on the Blessed Trinity) was quite splendid.
Comper's restored Rood Loft
Fr Andrew Mitcham greeted everyone at the end of Mass, and I even forgave him for outing me in the sermon – I had intended to remain anonymous in the pew, but Andrew decided to let everyone know that Jane and I were there.
Fr Andrew with parishioners
The Pilgrimage was, as always, a very joyful affair. The Protestant Protestors were vociferous by the Conduit in the centre of the village. One year when some of them were late I told them, "What a good thing you've arrived; we could not have begun without you".
Increasingly it seems as though our patrimony includes the most outrageous possible borrowings from Counter-Reformation Rome. Poached egg hats swept along in a little flotilla surrounding the Vicar of St Peter, London Docks, and during the procession lace afternoon table-cloths were much in evidence serving as cottas, along with diverse birettas. Unfortunately there seemed to be none of the truly exotic ones once favoured by Fr Brian Brindley and his curates – great lacquered affairs from Spain which seemed to have derived from the headgear of bullfighters.
de gustibus non est disputandum
There was only one serving Diocesan Bishop (Chichester) among the concelebrants, though the Bishop of Norwich and his colleague of Lynne came coped and mitred to show how open-minded the liberal ascendancy can be.
Non-Kosher Diocesan brings up the rear
Many were saying how this might be their last Anglican Pilgrimage; fortunately Walisham is a very ecumenical place – the priest from the Catholic Shrine was there, together with the local parish priest, and also the priest from the Orthodox church in Walsingham. Besides them, there was the parish priest of Nettuno, the great Italian pilgrimage centre, where the Bishop of Richborough had been earlier this year for the pilgrimage of Our Lady of Grace.
Ready for the Procession
Related posts:
Question: Why might this be the last pilgrimage? Are the Cromwellian Prots taking over again? Just seems like a devilish thing to forecast.
Bishop Edwin, an Anglican elder who does get out very often is kind to have noted my being at the Pilgrimage. His comments on sartorial style, and their lack of accountability, must be taken with a pinch of (pure Sea) salt, he is as aware as other readers of this blog of the radical and reformist trends in the Catholic and Roman Church, which will, as ever, find a pale reflection in Anglicanism. We are fashion victims of the Benedictine imperative!
I think it refers to their last pilgrimage to Walsingham as Anglicans. Many will move to an Ordinariate if it is implemented this year.
Not the last Pilgrimage; the last Anglican one in which I and others might participate, since in the Ordinariate we shall be going as Catholic Pilgrims.
I never had a chance to go to Walsingham even when I was in England. But I look forward to going on the pilgrim's way hopefully when there is no separate Anglican or Catholic pilgrimages but just one pilgrimage, like the one that started in Lady Richeldis' time.
Our Lady of Walsingham is taking an interest in what's happening in the Anglican Communion, even in Roman Catholic Philippines, where the Anglican/Episcopal presence is just 110 years old and where most people identify the Episcopal church with a hospital and mountain coffee brew!
Oh, O.K., thanks for the clarification! Had me worried. I hope to get there one day myself.
After entering the Ordinariate, shall we be doing pilgrimage to the Catholic Walsingham Shrine (I believe where the pilgrims began there last leg of pilgrimage by taking off their shoes?)
Ah, Fr Jones; but I thought you were the one who provided the sartorial inspiration for BentoXVI !
Can anyone enlighten me on these "Prostestant Protesters" please? Seems odd that if they are so against it, why did they bother to go all the way there anyway?
Upon the advent of the Ordinariate, could there be two Catholic shrines in Walsingham, or would the ghost of Fr. Hope Patten return to haunt all and sundry?
The Protestors at the Pump usually harangue us with quotations from the 39 Articles; though what business they have with those articles is a mystery, since the protestors seem to be nonconformists of Irish and Scots connection. One has had the decency to respond to the rugby-playing blogger of S Barnabas' Tonbridge Wells; if you comment there you might get some sort of answer. They seem to get a little put out when the Pilgrims sing"There is pow'r, pow'r, pow'r in the Blood of the Lamb &c"… +E