Candle Mass at Walsingham

Love it or loath it, there’s more to Walsingham than the shrine! Never mind summer’s  high church high jinks! I recommend Walsingham’s wet winter woods in February.
The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, some call it the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Candlemas falls on 2nd. Forty days after Jesus’ birth Mary, Joseph had taken their new baby on pilgrimage. At the temple in Jerusalem the infant Christ was recognised by the elderly Simeon and Anna who spoke to his parents about their child and his destiny.

One misty February morning found me on pilgrimage in Walsingham.  I had parked at the Slipper Chapel,  then walked the Holy Mile to the Abbey - avoiding the traffic on the main road by following the new path along the old railway line.

Paying my entrance fee, I passed into the Abbey grounds and made straight to the pack-horse bridge.  Wow! Snowdrops, Candlemas Bells some call them, bejewelled with dew, bowed their heads beneath the skeletal spindles of bare branched trees.  And here and there among the Snowdrops the gold of Aconites shone through.  Here was a treasure beyond price.

Alternative names for Snowdrops are Fair Maids of February and Purification Flowers.  Walking the paths my mind turned to Mary, motherhood, joy and pain, life and death, the mystery of suffering and Anna’s prophecy that a sword would pierce her heart. 

I thought about Simeon too.  Like him I’m near the end of my life. Like him I believe that Jesus is the answer to all the worlds ills  - “a light to lighten the nations!”  But will I be ready to sing the Nunc Dimittis  when my time comes?!
I tried saying the words out loud:
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace : according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen : thy salvation…….

And in the wintry wood the flowers shone like stars in the night sky!

The Abbey Grounds are open daily 10 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. £3.50 for adults. £2.59 concessions. Tickets from February – to the end of October are available from the Shirehall Museum.  Visitors are advised that stout shoes should be worn: dogs be kept on leads; and although not all the grounds are wheel chair accessible and there is a wheel chair that can be borrowed by visitors

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Day of the Rest of My Life

Image
 I have not posted much of late. I have been struggling. Between completing the pioneering work on a possible Withburga Way between Holkham and Dereham in the summer of 2022 and today my health has gone downhill in alarming way. I'll never walk the route in a couple of days, nor yet in 3.  I'll never walk it.  The rapid onset Pulmonary Fibrosis has left me struggling for breath putting my boots on let alone walking.  Yesterday, I went to St. Benet's Abbey , ate my picnic lunch in the car park and set myself the challenge of walking from the car park to the Abbey ruins. It is 0.35 miles and uphill all the way from from the Gate House to the old rugged cross that marks the site of the high altar at the summit. The hill looked quite daunting -  "Who can ascend the hill of the Lord?" I sang under by breath. Stopping often to catch my breath, slowly one foot in front of the other, I got closer to the summit. There before the cross, wind in my hair, it felt as i...
Read more

North Elmham

Image
I’d come to North Elmham pursuing a mystery. Did the Bishops of Elmham from Bedwinus in the 7th century to Herfast in the 11th have their cathedral in Norfolk or  Suffolk?  North or South Elmham? I’d followed a circular walk I’d found in the  Norfolk Health Heritage and Conservations Walks  leaflet (You can get hold of one from Norfolk County Council or on-line at www.countrysideaccess.norfolk.gov.uk .)  It took me through parkland,  along quiet lanes and ended up at the parish church  (Well worth a visit in its own right!) My final destination was indicated by a brown tourist sign. Uncompromisingly it asserts “Saxon Cathedral”! But when you get to the ruins and read English Heritage’s helpful interpretation boards there’s no certainty at all.  What you see are earthworks and  ruins of a castle built by Henry Despencer,  the fighting Bishop of Norwich. He was famous for putting down the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. A man not witho...
Read more

York Minster Pilgrimage

Image
The statue is of Constantine lolling in a chair, just outside York Minster’s south door. On the other side of a pedistrianised roadway one of the great columns of the Roman Garrison’s Principia building has been re-errected. As I stood and surveyed the scene I was very close to the place where in 306 CE the IX Legion proclaimed Constantine Emperor, the successor to his father Constantius. Before Constantine died in 337 CE he had converted to Christianity and the privileges and status that had once belonged to those who promoted the cult of the Divine Emperor fell to well placed churchmen. Some thought the privilege, power and status too much and retreated into the cleansing austerity of the desert. Other’s relished in it, climbing the dizzy heights of hierarchy and enthusiastically taking over Imperial Rome’s loveof monumental buildings pouring endless resources into the building, beautifying and maintenance of Christain basilicas. I am inclined to say, “This is where,...
Read more