Parish Pilgrimage to Walsingham
August 2006

Ruth Bryant

Pilgrims gather each afternoon at the Well within the Shrine Church for what is known as a ‘Sprinkling’. A Priest talks to Pilgrims about the Well and it’s waters and explains that the water is ordinary and not magical. Extraordinary things can and have happened if the water is received in faith. The waters are effective signs of God’s grace in the way he will best meet our needs. Each Pilgrim goes down the steps to the Well where the Priest is standing with a ladle of water. With the water the Priest makes the sign of the cross on the forehead, gives the Pilgrim a sip of the water and then pours water over the open hands of the Pilgrim. Many Pilgrims have received healing through this ministry, which is, of course, accompanied by prayer.

St. Wilfrid’s Pilgrimage has a weekly programme of Prayer, Services, Procession and of course social activities. Within the framework of the regular Shrine services, we have the opportunity to visit different places, in the glorious countryside and seaside of north Norfolk and always end our pilgrimage with a meal together at one of the local pubs.

The life of a Christian is a journey to our Heavenly home.. Christians are sometimes called Pilgrim People, and from earliest times Christians have journeyed to Holy places to renew and nourish their experience of faith. To go on Pilgrimage is to underline a basic insight of the Gospel, that we are all traveling home to God.

We go to Walsingham as a Shrine dedicated to the Incarnation. It underlines our belief that Christ took flesh of a human mother and entered into our human existence. It gives us a chance to get away from our daily routine and look afresh at ourselves to see how far we fall short of how we really want, like Mary, to say ‘be it unto me according to my word’. We go again and again to get a glimpse of the glory of God so that like Mary we will be strengthened to stand with Our Lord at the foot of His Cross. As the disciples had to come down to the plain after the Transfiguration so we return after our pilgrimage to our lives on the plain, renewed and refreshed with a new determination to live our lives for God and His people.

I will end with the words of one of our Anglican Bishops.

"No matter how we explain Walsingham, we cannot explain it away. I am one of thousands to whom it has been a Jacob’s Ladder, a point of meeting between Heaven and earth.