LMS Ely to Walsingham Pilgrimage 2016

3 Days. 60 miles. At least 60 decades of the Rosary. Countless litanies. Scores of hymns and marching songs. Many friendships. Innumerable graces. Deo gratias!

If you haven't done this pilgrimage, do consider it. It was my first time, and I'm pleased to say that I managed to walk the whole thing. It is physically difficult, but nothing that a reasonably fit adult can't manage. 

In a way it needs to be gruelling in order to reach that place of inner peace that allows for fruitful prayer. For me it was a profoundly spiritually healthy experience and one which I've been waiting many years to do... I had to wait until my children were either old enough to complete the walk themselves (around 11-12 seems to be realistic) or were old enough to be left for 5 days with somebody else while I was on pilgrimage  (which is what we did with the littlies - 7 & 9 - this year). The older two children joined us. 

Walking a pilgrimage as a family (or partial family)  is probably quite different than walking alone: I was moved by how stoic my children were in the face of  demanding physical hardship, how prayerful they were, how cheerful and helpful they were to others. Walking in prayer for long hard miles with my husband nourished our marriage in way that I didn't expect. 

Walking alone or with old or new friends offered countless possibilities for insights and inspirations. Having confession heard by an excellent priest whilst walking through a forest was a novel (but very positive) experience. 60 miles is a long way. It feels much further on foot than it does, say, in a car or even on a bike. 

The last mile on the Saturday was probably the hardest: the sky clouded over, the wind became fierce and heavy rain lashed down. Still, we managed to enter Great Massingham singing Jubilate Deo. Loudly, happily; a glorious burst of praise. 

May God help us all to keep singing in the face of adversity until next year's pilgrimage. 

I hope I see some of you there. 

We arrived for the first night: fresh and ready to walk...

There was a sense of excitement the evening before we left Ely...

Ely Cathedral: the start of our pilgrimmage. Morning of Day 1 (Friday)

Ely Cathedral

Ely Cathedral

Ely Cathedral

Ely Cathedral. This photo and the next three -- A history lesson: the work of the iconoclasts. One has to wonder how convinced the 16th C proto-Isis "reformers" were about what they were doing to leave walls that speak more eloquently of their folly than any historian could do.

 Reformation vandalism.

Reformation vandalism.

Reformation vandalism.

Leaving Ely. Mile one of sixty.

"Faith of our fathers, Mary's prayers
Shall win our country back to thee;
And through the truth that comes from God
England shall then indeed be free."

"Blest Isle! With machless, with machless beauty crown'd,
And many hearts to guard the fair."

The first and very welcome rest stop. Little did we know we were about to head into 90 minutes of walking through knee-high nettles!

"Lorsque la nuit paisible
Nous invite au sommeil,
Près de nous, invisible,
Restez jusqu'au réveil"

This was one of the stranger signs we saw along the way.

"Oxburgh Hall: built by the Bedingfeld family in the 15th C an they have lived here ever since. Today mos of hte house belongs to the National Trust , but the Bedingfeld's still live there and they still own the chapel. We are very grateful to Sir Henry and Lady (Mary) Bedingfeld for welcoming us to Oxburgh Hall and allwing us to use the chapel for Mass." (From the LMS Pilgrim's Handbook 2016) 

A brief rest stop along the road.

Castle Acre priory: founded 1089, stolen by Henry VIII & given to the Duke of Norfolk in 1539; the monks were turned out and the priory was left in ruins. More fruits of the "Reformation". 

"Faith of our fathers, living still
In spite of dungeon, fire and sword;
O how our hearts beat high with joy
Whenever we hear that glorious Word!"

Soaking wet! A torrential deluge hit us the last mile of our longest walking day. The 24th mile was the hardest. However thanks to Lucy Shaw and Clare Auty and their able team, a wonderful meal and moral support awaited the cold, wet pilgrims.

Father, in heaven employ thy prayer,
lest we, whom happier times befriend,
forgetful of our birthright there,
On this dull world our love should spend." 

"Yet a thin stream of pilgrims still walked the old way,
And hearts longed to see this night turned into day."

In addition to the the hardships, great fun was had by all, new friendships forged and old ones cemented.

Along the pilgrims' way

Getting closer... how glad we were to see this sign!

Almost there. Lovely husband multitasking while carrying the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham.

The Pilgrim's mile between the Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham and the ruins of Walsingham Abbey. 
Traditionally this is walked barefoot.

The ruins of the Walsingham Abbey. The former site of the Holy House is marked by a wooden plaque in the grass.

"But at last came a King who had greed in his eyes,
And he lusted for treasure with fraud and with lies.

The order went forth; and with horror 'twas learned,
That the Shrine was destroyed and the Image was burned"

40 English Martyrs: picture in the Pilgrims' Guest House, Walsingham village.

Monday morning Mass, Votive Mass of Our Lady with commemoration of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist; Basilica of Our Lady of Walsigham (aka the Slipper Chapel). Celebrant is Fr Michael Rowe; My eldest son (14) is MC.

"Still pilgrim feet are treading, along the holy way,
Hostess of England's Nazareth, receive us home today"

10 Ideas for Advent

A little late from the starting blocks with this, but still worth sharing: Father Tim Finigan has some excellent suggestions on his parish website of  ways to observe the season of Advent in order to prepare for the birth of Our Lord. I was particularly taken by the simple suggestion of praying a Hail Mary before opening a window on the Advent calendar: a tiny pause for thought and reflection.

Image from The Pod Company

Prayer for the family: Synod 2015

A friend, currently in Rome, asked me to share this prayer. Please pray: pray, pray, pray like you've never prayed before. The stakes are high and the smoke of Satan lingers ....

But above all remember Our Lord's promise: the gates of Hell will not prevail.

The Seven Sorrows of Homeschooling Mothers

This talk by a FSSP priest contains much food for thought and had me oscillating between tears of laughter and tears of sad recognition: any home educating mother will find something to relate to, and I think this deserves to be more widely shared.

Happy Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

We began the day with a beautiful Mass and prayers of reparation to the Sacred Heart at the Sacred Heart side altar this morning; Fr. Finigan's sermon mentioned that Sacre Coeur in Paris was built with donations from Catholics throughout France in order to have a place of perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and a permanent place for prayers of reparation to the Sacred Heart.

 

...and our celebration cake:

 

 

...which was probably a little too jolly looking but was delicious nonetheless. My two eldest children

(10 and 12) baked cake in a heart-shaped tin and I decorated it later on with strawberries, cream and mint-chocolate wafers shattered to make the thorns.

 

 

You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.

Home educators in France are waking up to the reality that their educational choice is about to be legislated out of existence by the French Senate. This is the latest in a raft of anti-family measures by the Hollande government, which has also added traditionalist pro-family group Civitas to groups to be monitored for “religious pathology” by the newly minted “National Observatory of Secularism” created by Interior Minister Manuel Valls  to promote France’s secularist policy and what it deems to be 'public morality' in schools.  

It shouldn't be surprising that home education is under threat in France. Vincent Peillon, current National Minister of Education is on YouTube saying that democracy is not possible where the Catholic Church is present and that the Church must be destroyed as part of an ongoing “revolution”. Pro-family groups in France are finding the legislative ground shifting, but  have become well organised: the wonderful pro-(natural)-family “Manif Pour Tous” movement has spread beyond France to Spain, Italy and Ireland. We need it in Britain as well.

British home educators watch France with increasing unease. We have a few things in our favour – for the moment at least. The first is that home educating in the UK is not a predominantly religious phenomenon. The vast majority do so for loosely philosophical  reasons: most are found somewhere on the hippie-ish spectrum – from yurt dwelling alternative lifestylers to slightly mad Oxbridge academic families, they are all people who have thought outside the box and often place great value on family and children. For Catholic home educators this is positive: religion can't be pinpointed so easily as a reason to crack down on home ed. Britain also has a legacy of civil liberties,  from which stems a residual  tolerance of home education  compared to other European countries. The strong home education communitiessthat have resulted mean  home educated children have access to wide and varied social networks. This is significant as the French legislation specifically mentions "voluntary de-socialization, destined to submit the child, who is particularly vulnerable, to a psychic, ideological or religious conditioning" as the reason for banning out-of-school learning.

In Britain the current government is taking a laissez-faire attitude towards home education. If it's working – and the research shows that it is – why change it?  However only a few years ago,  in his role as Secretary of State for Children Schools and Families, Ed Balls did his best to crush home education, commissioning a report on electively home educated children. When the initial report recommended no changes to the existing situation Balls commissioned a second report followed by a select committee. Backbencher Barry Sheerman, (who as Chairman of the parliamentary cross-party committee on children, schools and families under the last government  asserted that “faith education works all right as long as people are not that serious about their faith. But ...it does become worrying when you get … more fundamentalist bishops”) has been asking leading questions about Home Education and making cryptic comments on Twitter. The message is clear: home education is in our sights and we won't be happy until it's gone.

Should this matter to the majority of parents who do not home educate? ABSOLUTELY. Why? 
Because Home Education as a litmus test of the relationship between the family and the state. Where the state accepts home education the state is accepting the family as the natural and safe environment for a child to learn. By contrast, state prohibition of home education is symptom of a state’s broader ideological position: suspicious of the family, wary of religious or ideological “indoctrination” , and insisting that professionals are better equipped than parents to guide children's academic and moral growth. 

A government that does not respect the right of a family to determine their children's educational path will never respect the rights of the parent to be the primary influence on their child. When the next round of state-led threats to home education kicks-off, pay attention: it’s not just about home education.

A version of this article appeared in Catholic Family Round-up in April 2014

Traditional blessing of Easter Food

Each year on Holy Saturday our Parish Priest blesses meat, bread and eggs brought in by families that will be used for their Easter feast. I've been told that this is an ancient Catholic tradition that has survived best in Eastern Europe - Poland in particular where it is referred to as Święconka or in some regions Święcone. I'm half Polish, although grew up without any Polish customs or traditions in my family, so it's lovely to incorporate this into our family Easter rituals - so my quarter-Polish children have some sense of the Grandfather's culture.  


The prayers are particularly beautiful and remind us of the passover and the resurrection. Today the families who brought in their food also received a blessing and together we prayed Blessed Pope John Paul II's Prayer for Families. 

After the rigours of Lent -- and particularly Holy Week -- this simple ceremony feels like a gentle push towards the coming celebrations of the glory of the Resurrection. 

I wish all my readers a blessed and happy Eastertide. Blogging will resume after Easter and I will pray for you all at the Easter Vigil this evening.
 

Christus resurrexit! Resurrexit vere!

Youngest daughter made her first confession today...

Please pray for her.

 

Vandalising the Rosary

Photo credit: Vintagethisretrothat on Flickr

 

Apparently it wasn't just the Mass of Ages that the vandal Bugnini intended to demolish in the name of ecumenism and "noble simplicity" (a.k.a.Brutalism): the most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary was also in his crosshairs. A fascinating article on Venermur cernui (a new-to-me blog from Dallas, Tx., well worth a rummage through) describes what can only be called Bugnini's evil masterplan to destroy reform the Rosary including only allowing one "Our Father" per five decades and removing everything after the word "womb" in the Hail Mary. This is all detailed in Bugnini's Reform of the Liturgy which I haven't read but am now sorely tempted to - if only to raise my (usually too low) blood pressure! The whole article is worth a read, you can read it here.

 

My first thought after reading this was about the children at Fatima. As I remember, one of the very first actions of Our Lady in her apparitions was to teach the three children to say the Rosary properly: until then they had rushed through it, simply saying the first words of each prayer: "Our Father, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Glory Be..." etc..

...and if Our Blessed Mother thinks that saying the Rosary properly is both important and necessary, then who are we to argue?

That the Rosary is recognised as a particularly efficacious prayer against evil makes any attempted sidelining or attempted vandalism even more sinister. I'm thinking specifically of its use as a tool in prayer campaigns outside abortuaries against the slaughter of innocents and towards the conversion of the hearts of those involved in the grisly business of abortion.

Being a post Vatican II baby, I ran a reasonably high chance of never encountering the Rosary. It wasn't until I was an adult that met anybody who prayed it, apart from my grandparents; sadly I never saw them praying although I am positive that their prayers for me are in large part responsible for my return to the Faith in my late 20s. For that I remain ever-grateful.

As a child in the 1970s, I remember my grandmother had sending me Rosary beads. I asked my parents what they were for. "Oh it's a lot of Hail Mary's and you're supposed to think about other things as well" was the gist of the answer. The message was clear: it's long and boring and we're not going to do it. I loved my Rosary beads though and tried to make up what I thought the Rosary might be, although rather unsuccessfully.

About 10 years ago, having been back in the arms of Mother Church for some time, I decided I to find out more about the Rosary. At first I only said one decade, at night, usually as I nursed a baby to sleep in bed. At the time a decade -- a whole decade! -- seemed like a lot. Sometimes I would even fall asleep before I finished. It took some time for me to remember the different decades of the different mysteries, and I read various books, various approaches. In time, and as the children were a little older, I suggested to my husband that we pray a decade together as a family before bedtime at night. It was awkward and a bit clumsy the first few times, but we could feel the graces flowing and soon it was a habit that we wouldn't dream of breaking for any reason. Around the time of the Papal Visit we decided to graduate from our nightly decade a whole Rosary including the Creed and the prayers for the Pope and we built our family night prayers around this. My husband leads our prayers, but we each take turns to lead a decade of the Rosary, with parents helping the youngest children. This has been a great blessing for our family -- a time of calm contemplation before bed. When we have Catholic guests, we share our night prayers with other families. Reading through the description of Bugnini's proposed truncated version of the Rosary, I wonder whether, had his vandalism been accomplished, I would have had a chance to know Our Lady's Rosary, let alone witness the great graces that flow from it to my family, to all who pray it, and to the whole world. If you haven't tried praying a regular Rosary - do. It will, literally, change your life.

Our Lady of the Rosary, Ora pro nobis,

 

 

 

The family ... holy in essence, holier when shared

We've just spent a pleasant impromptu evening with two other families: chatting, eating, laughing. Children from toddlers to teenagers romping and playing. As with many similar gatherings, the evening ended with everyone together in one warm room, praying together in the gloaming light of the fire. Together young and old sang the last carols of the Christmas season. We prayed the Rosary, the father of the hosting family leading a decade, then the young girls, then the boys, followed by the mothers and finally the fathers all praying together. A savvy teenager reminded us that we could gain a plenary indulgence if we prayed the Creed and the Prayers for the Pope as well as our rosary, and we sang a Salve Regina with even the youngest children raising their voices to God. I was acutely aware of what a blessing this gathering of souls was, and that the warmth I felt was not simply the contrast of the cozy woodstove compared to the rainy night outdoors, but the far more profound warmth of true fellowship and a shared love of God and family. There is something both humbling and ennobling about groups of families praying together; it is as though the raging storm stills for a moment and Heaven bends its ear to the collective prayers.

Today is, appropriately,  the Feast of the Holy Family (E.F.)  - I wish all my readers and their families a happy and holy feast day.

Happy Feast of the Epiphany!

 

Just home from High Mass and the blessing of chalk. With this and Epiphany water from yesterday's blessing, my husband led the traditional Epiphany blessing of the home. Lovely way to round off Christmas. We are so very fortunate to have a Parish Priest who encourages the traditions that keep the Faith alive in the family. Deo gratias!

 

Identity politics

Four year old son was in a philosophical mood today.

"Mummy" he said, "do you know what I am?"

"Go on..."

"Well... I'm a talking human being... and a Catholic ... and an Englishman."

This was pronounced with a face beaming with certainty and pride. No confusion there then, Deo gratias! He can certainly talk for England anyway...

 

 

 

Surviving home education

“No school today for this lot?” The woman behind the counter peers curiously at my children. “Nope,” I sigh, “not today, not any day...” and taking my change I head out the door with my little brood behind me. I'm usually far more patient – honestly I am – but we are still 30 minutes from Seamus Heaney's grave in County Derry and have been driving for almost three hours in the rain. Today isn't the day to explain to every stranger perplexed by the sight of free range children during school hours how wonderful home education is: we're too busy living it.

Heaney's grave, Bellaghy, Co. Derry

At Heaney's grave, shared with his parents and brother Christopher, we read “Mid Term Break” (about his baby brother's death and funeral) and pray a Rosary in Latin for the repose of all their souls, ending with a sung Salve Regina. Heaney loved Latin: famously, his last words to his wife, by text message, were "Noli timere". Other visitors to the grave, local men who were Heaney's contemporaries, join in with our Rosary and thank us afterwards for praying., apparently very few people do. After signing the book of condolence in the church, St Mary's Bellaghy, we drive due North toward the coast, pausing briefly at Bushmills to consider the science of distillation, before arriving at the Giant's Causeway – a World Heritage Site and natural wonder of volcanic basalt eroded into astonishing hexagonal columns like a giant three dimensional honeycomb. In addition to the fascinating hands-on geology, we learn about the kelp industry, about Irish mythology and that you get more soaked standing on the Antrim coast in a blowing gale than you do by plunging into a swimming pool. Fish and chips a little further around the coast, then a long drive back in the dark, home to our holiday cottage. A good day.

Giant's Causeway, Co. Antrim

Not every home education day is an adventure. For each day like yesterday, there's one where my children drive each other (and me) crazy. Where the house is a mess, where someone has fed playdough to the cat; where the dog has chewed the eyepiece of one of the microscopes, and we can't find the answer key for the Latin workbook.

That's when the September not-back-to-school doubts start to creep in. Will my children suffer or benefit from the choices that we, their parents make? Will they end up illiterate / happy / unemployable / holy / overspecialised / expert / only fit for employment in a circus? Are we doing the right thing? Can any parent ever answer that question with 100% certitude?

Then the Angelus bell chimes. The rhythm of daily life masters us gently and our family prayer leads to calm and resolution as I hand my fears over to Sede sapientiae – Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom to whom we've consecrated our home education undertaking.

Nothing is perfect – no school, no home, no family. In choosing to home educate we do two things: the first is take full responsibility for our children's education, for better or for worse; and the second is to place our hopes and fears into Our Lady's hands. But really, no matter where or with whom their children spend their weekday hours, these are two things that every Catholic parent, as first and primary educator,should do. We are in the business of educating souls: Sede sapientiae, ora pro nobis!

A version of this piece first appeared in Catholic Family News