#Lockdown Pilgrimage - Mothering Sunday

No chance of going anywhere today! I  am socially isolating in advance of a small op' scheduled for tomorrow! So here I go - pilgrimaging on the internet! Sauntering ( Sainte terre ing)!

I had planned to go to Hautbois Church, drawn there by a host of wild daffodils and a church dedicated to Jesus' mum.


I was there at a similar time last year  - see Annunciation Pilgrimage.  But I wanted, more than anything, to pick up where I left off last Sunday, with that Roman brick in the wall of my mother church, St. John's; and to reflect on earlier generations of Mother Church. I am imagining the generations like so many Russian dolls one inside the other! We owe the life we live to them! 

Norfolk has no Roman or Post Roman church buildings, no great Constantinian brick built churches as in Trier and only the hint of their existence in the place names of villages.  Norfolk has two Eccles, a name derived from the British word eclesia meaning church.

Suffolk has one Roman church site at Wethill Farm, from where this lead font (in the British Museum) was recovered.  Fonts are a reminder, if one was needed,  that mothers give life, and Christians owe their new life to  baptism and being  nurtured in the faith by Mother Church. 


Copyright: British Museum

The Lincolnshire has several more Roman lead fonts.


If Norfolk has no Roman era church buildings, it does some archaeology that relates to personal devotion.  For example, a metal detectorist found this 5th Cenury silver ring in 2013.


Copyright :Portable Antiquities Scheme

From the 5th Century, the lettering reads "Antoni Vivas in Deo"  -  "Antonius, may you live in God." A baptism present for an adult convert, perhaps! The Antonius ring is one of several similar rings from 4th/5th Century,  known after an earlier find as Brancaster Type Rings. . The Brancaster ring shares the same, "Vivas in deo" inscription.  In normal times it  can be seen at the Castle Museum in Norwich.

Copyright :Norfolk Museum Service


For the time being we can only make guesses about Christian church buildings and organisational structures that supported Antonius and the couple from Brancaster.   As we can only make guesses about the Christian buildings and organisational structures that will support the Church in rural post-pandemic Norfolk. Yet the challenged they faced, is ours too!  

                How can we best "Live in God"?








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 if the b
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 without enemies, Henry had obviously felt the need of
Read more

Buckenham Rook Roost

Image
Beneath a winter sky the sun sinks slowly in the west . Wrapped against the cold -  and rapt by the beauty - I pondered on the generations before me who had stood and watched as day turned to night. Millions of sunsets and millions upon millions of the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve .  I found myself signing with the Psalmist: You appointed the moon to mark the seasons and the sun knows the time of its setting, You make darkness that it may be night in which the beasts of the forest creep forth (Psalm 104) Across the darkening marsh the whistles and murmuring of widgeon quietened, a thin mist rose and deer emerge from the woodland  to graze beneath a reddening sky.  All this was but the overture to the evening’s main event. I had come to see a wild life spectacular which is repeated every night during the winter period and the station platform was the grandstand from which to view it. From far and wide streamed “ in a countless host” each as black a clergyman’s cassock and eac
Read more