Fr. RICHARD WALKER’S REFLECTIONS ON THE 2025 PARISH PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE OF OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM

 

T.S. Eliot in Little Gidding wrote:

A people without history

Is not redeemed from time, for history

Is a pattern of timeless moments. So,

While the light fails on a winter’s afternoon

In a secluded chapel

History is now and England.

For me that pattern of timeless moments meets at Walsingham. The incarnation was (amongst other things) about Jesus bringing us a vision of how the world could be without conflict, without violence. Where the resources of God’s creation were shared out more equally, and where love of God and neighbour became a reality. Tolstoy at the end of a long and eventful life was asked why, with so much human progress the world was still in such a mess. His answer was that we had not paid enough attention to the Sermon on the Mount.

At Walsingham, almost a thousand years ago that vision was made a reality by a woman, and I find it fascinating that that part of Norfolk – Kings Lynne and Norwich – later in the 14th Century would produce two more women who were visionaries – Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe.

When I first visited the Shrine in 1996, I described it as a bit like spending a long weekend in a parallel universe! It’s a bit like the story of the “Transfiguration.” Peter, you remember was enthralled by the vision, and famously wanted to erect a couple of booths, evidently wanting to stay. But like Pilgrims to Walsingham he had to go back down the mountain and re-enter the dangerous and troubled world he had left. Walsingham is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the vision. Like millions who preceded us, each time we make the journey the context is constantly changing, because change is the one constant in our lives. The Greek thinker Heraclitus reminded his followers that they could never step into the same river twice!

As well as a destination for pilgrims, the Shrine is a repository for thousands of requests for prayer. At 6 p.m. each day those requests are gathered up and incorporated in the Rosary. As you know, you don’t pass the Shrine, it is a destination. This aspect of the continuing Christian witness is indicative of a profound human yearning for a spiritual dimension to life, something that many people identify with the shrine.

Thank you for your company, it was a wonderful weekend. I always feel a great sadness about leaving Walsingham, but I go reassured by some words of Julian of Norwich which Eliot incorporated into the last stanzas of Little Gidding:

And all will be well

And all manner of thing shall be well.