Norfolk Pilgrim

Once, long ago, many would come on this feast day to St. Mary, Hautbois . Today, there was just me and, if not a host, there was a least, "a scattering of golden daffodils, beneath the trees". I came and prayer and remembered using the Hail Mary of Raymond Lull And I am not sure that I was wandering lonely. I had, rather, strode manfully, through the village and along the disused railway line with plenty of time to ponder on the way. Thoughts about: predestination and the permanents way The primrose path that leads to the everlasting bonfire.  And about the Lamb of God

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 ...

I am just back from a winter holiday in the Canary Islands.  As I looked out from the balcony of my rented holiday flat I wondered what was the story behind the cross on the beach and the mural close by. It turns out we were staying at an important historical site. Back in the days before the Spanish conquest, two Guanche shepherds discovered a statue of Our Lady. Echoes here of the discovery of another Black Madonna,   Our Lady of Lluch . The statue was kept for a while in a nearby cave. To this day there are cave dwellings in El Socorro. Once again there are echoes. On one hand, the cave in Bethlehem is one and, on the other, the sheer ordinariness of the dwelling - he became flesh and dwelt among us. After a number of years the image was relocated to  another cave on the sea shore. A mile or so north around which has grown the Town of Cadelaria. The original image was was lost when a tsunami  swept into the cave and carried it out to s...