High winds and holiness in a field in Norfolk

The bank holiday weekend at the end of May signals the start of our family pilgrimage to Walsingham. Together with around 60 other Catholic families we spend from Friday through Monday camping in a field, sharing food, conversation, support and prayer. It's a wonderful spiritual retreat complete with penances of high winds, cold nights and driven rain. Yet despite the privations (no showers for 4 days!) we always feel refreshed -- if physically tired -- after the pilgrimage. The daily Masses, the communal prayer (morning prayer, Rosary, night-time prayer), the talks and the fellowship all combine to provide a spiritual shot in the arm

This year we were particularly blessed to have Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke as our guest. His Eminence had kindly given his time to spend several days in a wet field in Norfolk with a small number of Catholic families: what a boost to our vocations that was. And what a gift to the Church ++Burke is. Please pray for this holy, humble and charitable prince of Holy Mother Church.

The only thing better than a favouite mantilla...

...is a favourite mantilla blessed by a favourite Cardinal!

++Burke with an exhausted crozier-bearer, Ramsgate  March 2014

I was delighted to meet Cardinal Raymond Burke earlier this year when he celebrated High Pontifical Mass at St Augustine's Shrine Church in Ramsgate. It was a glorious Mass (Fr Finigan's excellent description is well worth reading, and Mulier Fortis has some wonderful photographs of the evening) and we enjoyed meeting the very warm and affable ++Burke after the Mass at a reception. Many people asked him to bless items for them, and he obliged. I had a favourite Rosary with me, but alas! it had already been blessed by the admirable +Davies (of whom, as regular readers will know, we are great fans) and so I thought that I had nothing to be blessed. What a shame. Afterwards I discovered that a friend had had her mantilla blessed and that another had his missal blessed (and inscribed!) by ++Burke. Oh alas and alack! If I had only thought...

Well all was not lost. We were thrilled to have Cardinal Burke back again in England for this year's traditional Confirmations and to celebrate the LMS' annual requiem Mass at Westminster Cathedral. Cardinal Burkes schedule was unrelenting and we didn't have an opportunity to meet him again properly this time, but my dear friend Queen of Puddings kindly arranged to have him bless my favourite mantilla (the heavy-duty all-weather survival one) and I received it back - blessed!

Thrilled just isn't the word.