TO BE A PILGRIM
T
he Diocesan News announces the Scottish Pilgrimage to the Shrine of
Our Lady of Walsingham to
take place from Friday 25th to
Monday 28th September 2015. It
states, that for over 40 years the
annual Scottish Pilgrimage has taken
many to the small village of
Walsingham in North Norfolk. The
event ‘provides a great opportunity to
meet, share and worship with other
Episcopalians and Anglicans in a
peaceful and blessed setting’. There
is to be a programme of reflection, worship and socialising.
That seems to be the aim of the pilgrimage.- There are many different
motivations to go on a pilgrimage, it is a very ancient custom and activity.
That this one should go to a rather insignificant place in Norfolk is surprising.
I have been once there –as a tourist- but did not go down to the sacred
space below ground, which is said to contain a ‘Holy Well’ associated with
the Virgin Mary. It felt to me like a pagan place.
Pilgrimage in its widest sense of resorting to a place of particular emotional
attraction appears to be a near universal human phenomenon, like the Hajj is
a sacred duty for Muslims. Pre Christian holy places are known in this
Country. Christianity would have found it necessary to replace ancient
healing temples and other sacred spaces with its own. Such places often
included shrines of saints.
The places radiated supernatural power, especially if the saint had met a
martyr’s death, or if the body had been incorrupt. Pilgrims could get access
where apertures beneath or above the sarcophagus were provided. In the
Cathedral of Santiago pilgrims can climb up to the statue of St James and
touch it through an opening. Sometimes there were ambulatory passages or
circuits, as well as the ancient practices of leaving votive offerings