Our Lady of Walsingham
Feast day: Sept. 21
On New Year’s Day 2012, Pope Benedict XVI established the
Personal Ordinariate, a kind of super-diocese for Episcopalians who have become
or are preparing to become Catholics, while retaining some of the liturgical
traditions of the Episcopal Church. Bishop Steven J. Lopes is responsible for
Ordinariate Catholics across the United States and Canada. There is also an
Ordinariate in the U.K and another in Australia.
The Blessed Mother, under her title Our Lady of Walsingham, is
the patron of the Ordinariate. For almost 500 years, the shrine of Our Lady in
Walsingham in Norfolk, England, attracted throngs of pilgrims, including
several kings (Edward I went on pilgrimage to the shrine 11 times).
The story of the shrine begins in 1061, when a noblewoman,
Richeldis de Faverches, had a vision of Mary in which the Blessed Mother showed
her the Holy House of Nazareth, the home of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Mary asked
Richeldis to build a replica of the Holy House in England. Mary promised,
“Whoever seeks my help there will not go away empty-handed.”
Based on what she saw in her vision, Richeldis erected a wooden
house. For many years the shrine was a place of prayer for Catholics who lived
in the region. By 1153, Walsingham had become a national destination.
Augustinian monks built a priory there to serve the pilgrims and encased the
Holy House in stone to protect it from deteriorating. Our Lady of Walsingham
became one of England’s patron saints, and the shrine the most important Marian
shrine in the country.
Erasmus, the Dutch scholar, humanist and close friend of St.
Thomas More, visited Walsingham in 1513, when it was at the peak of its
splendor. “When you look in you would say it is the abode of saints,” Erasmaus
wrote, “so brilliantly does it shine with gems, gold and silver.” Tragically,
it did not last. Henry VIII broke with Rome so he could put away his wife,
Catherine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boleyn. Next, he closed all the monasteries
and convents and plundered their wealth. Walsingham was seized by the king in
1538. The Holy House was burned and the statue of Our Lady was carried off to London
to be publically destroyed. All that remains of the priory church today is a
single, soaring Gothic arch. Archaeologists have found the foundations of the
Holy House nearby.
The shrine began its revival in 1896, when a generous lady,
Charlotte Boyd, purchased the little Slipper Chapel, one of the stops for
pilgrims on their way to the priory. Boyd had the chapel restored. It remained
a private chapel until 1934, when the first Mass since the Reformation was celebrated
there and Cardinal Francis Bourne led 10,000 pilgrims on the one-mile walk from
the chapel to the site of the priory. Today there is an Anglican shrine and a
Catholic shrine at Walsingham, making it one of the few places — perhaps the
only place — where Catholics and Protestants come to venerate the Blessed
Mother.
Craughwell is the author of the newly released 101 Places
To Pray Before You Die: A Roamin’ Catholic’s Guide