Norfolk Pilgrim

Just back from church and an important discussion with Sylvia and Sue! I had read the gospel with my usual dramatic flair. They had heard it and nearly walked out! Why wouldn't you? St.Matthew's Sermon on the Mount -  ‘It was also said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.”  But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.' I should have said something in a sermon to put it in its context! As it was, our discussion afterwards went someway to putting it right. What I think is,  the teaching is related to that at Matthew 15.5  which is about people's hardness of heart B ut you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, 'Sorry, I can't help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.' A divorced woman might not have any means of supporting herself - save for ...

When she died in 1507, Agnes Parker owed a pilgrimage to St. Tebbald (St.Theobald) at Hobbies. In same year Thomas Wood of Coltishale left a legacies to the Guild of the Virgin at the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary at Hautbois and to paint the new tabernacle of St. Theobald in the Church. Thomas and Agnes were going to be my Simeon and Anna. Riding through Coltishall and past the Guides, Patterson Lodge Activity Centre ,  I chained my bike to the fence and walked down the track to the ruined church.  To the right is the Golden Gates Pond where generation of village kids have grappled - without success - for the said, golden gates . I often wonder if the gates in question were from the tabernacle of St.Theobald and deposited there after the shrines were suppressed by Henry VIII in 1538. Candlemas Bells - Snowdrops - are sprinkled around the churchyard. Woodpeckers drum, Buzzards call overhead and  Anna's warning echoes in my ears - "a sword ...