Our Lady of Walsingham

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Seal of the Medieval Shrine

Our Lady of Walsingham is a title used for the Blessed Virgin Mary. The title derives from belief that Mary appeared in a vision to a Saxon noblewoman in the village of Walsingham in Norfolk, England.

According to legend, in 1061 Richeldis de Faverches, the widow of the Lord of the Manor of Walsingham Parva, was visited in a dream by the Blessed Virgin Mary. In this vision she was taken by Mary to be shown the house in Nazareth where Gabriel had announced the news of the birth of Jesus. Mary asked Richeldis to build an exact replica of that house in Walsingham. The vision was repeated three times and the materials given by Richeldis were finally constructed miraculously one night into the Holy House while she kept a vigil of prayer. The Holy House was later passed down to her son, Geoffrey de Faverches.

In passing on his guardianship of the Holy House, Geoffrey left instructions for the building of a priory in Walsingham. The priory passed into the care of Augustinian Canons sometime between 1146 and 1174.

Pilgrimages

The Holy House, containing the simple wooden structure Richeldis had been asked to build, became both a shrine and the focus of pilgrimage to Walsingham. By the time of its destruction in 1538 the shrine had become one of the greatest religious centres in England, together with Glastonbury and Canterbury.

Royal patronage helped the shrine to grow in wealth and popularity, receiving visits from Henry III, Edward II, Edward III, Henry IV, Edward IV, Henry VII and Henry VIII.

Destruction

At the time of the English Reformation, following the Catholic revolt known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, the English court began to see Roman Catholicism not simply from a religious point of view, but rather as treason against the state.[1] The fear of another revolt was strongly felt by Henry VIII. This fear caused him to target as "superstitious" any religious practices that brought together large numbers of people. For this reason, he banned pilgrimages, saints' days, and the display of relics.[1] Late in 1538, the king's soldiers sacked the priory at Walsingham and destroyed the shrine as well, burning everything that could not be resold. Two monks were executed. The shrine of Thomas Becket, and most others through out the kingdom, saw the same fate at that time.

Modern revival

The procession at the Anglican National Pilgrimage to Walsingham proceeds through the grounds of the ruined abbey, May 2003.

After nearly four hundred years, the 20th century saw the restoration of pilgrimage to Walsingham as a regular feature of Christian life in the British Isles, and beyond.

In 1897 Pope Leo XIII re-established the restored 14th century Slipper Chapel as a Roman Catholic Shrine, now the centre of the Roman Catholic National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Father Alfred Hope Patten OSA, appointed as the Church of England Vicar of Walsingham in 1921, ignited Anglican interest in the pre-Reformation pilgrimage. It was his idea to create a new statue of Our Lady of Walsingham based on the image depicted on the seal of the medieval priory. In 1922, this statue was set up in the Parish Church of St Mary and regular pilgrimage devotion followed. From the first night that the statue was placed there, people gathered around it to pray, asking Mary to join her powerful prayer with theirs.

Throughout the 1920s the trickle of pilgrims became a flood of large numbers for whom, eventually, the Pilgrim Hospice was opened (a hospice is technically the name of a place of hospitality for pilgrims) and, in 1931, a new Holy House encased in a small pilgrimage church was dedicated and the statue translated there with great solemnity. In 1938 that church was enlarged to form the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Father Patten combined the posts of Vicar and Priest Administrator of the Anglican shrine until his death in 1958.

Today there are two shrines of Our Lady of Walsingham. The Roman Catholic shrine, centred around the Slipper Chapel, was established by Leo XIII in 1897. The Church of England shrine is centred around the rebuilt Holy House built in 1931 and expanded in 1938. In the United States, the National Shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham for the Episcopal Church is located in Grace Church, Sheboygan, Wisconsin. She is remembered by Roman Catholics on September 24 and by the Church of England on October 15.

See also


References

  1. ^ a b Schama, Simon (2000). A History of Britain Volume I. BBC Books. p. 315. ISBN 0563384972. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) Cite error: The named reference "schama" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).

External links

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