The late May bank holiday Monday means the National Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. This annual event is the Anglican Shrine’s big shindig. In the morning there is a Sung Mass, and in the afternoon a Sermon, Procession of the Image of Our Lady of Walsingham through the village, and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Pilgrims picnic between the two. (Glyndebourne without the dress code.) All this happens in the Abbey grounds, in the shadow of the ruined Priory’s towering east wall. This fragment of the past gets to witness, for one day a year, the purpose for which it was built.
Worship is at the core of the day, of course, but the National always provides an opportunity to catch up with old friends and acquaintances. As has often been the case during these months of sabbatical, there are lovely links with the parish I’ve left behind. The Master of the Guardians is the Bishop of Blackburn, Philip North, who sung in the choir stalls of my church as a boy. (He did so alongside James Thomson, for those of you who read Evensong in a country church.) Bishop Philip and Elise’s family go back a long way, and he preached at our wedding in Walsingham in 2017.
This was the second year in a row that the Shrine has hosted its own real ale festival, which this year was extended to include gin. As I’ve mentioned before, pilgrimage and alcoholic refreshment have a long and venerable relationship! A friend asked me today if more time is spent at the National drinking than worshipping. Obviously, I couldn’t possibly comment… Except to say that there is perhaps a healthy synergy between worship of the Almighty, and godly fellowship: we gather at the altar first, then the bar.
The beers on offer are sourced from two breweries which are both within a couple of miles of the Shrine: Barsham Brewery and Moon Gazer Ales at Norfolk Brewhouse.
I am a massive Moon Gazer fan, partly because they are based here in Hindringham, where I too am based at the moment. David and Rachel Holliday – aka ‘Mr and Mrs Moon Gazer’ – transformed a disused barn on the edge of the village in 2012. All the pubs worth drinking in locally stock their beers.
One of the reasons for their success is the way in which they understand and inhabit their environment. They use chalk-filtered water from a well onsite. Brewing grains are fed to local cattle. Even the names of their beers reflect the local countryside; they come from a medieval poem Names of the Hare: Jumper, Jigfoot, Cheeky Jack, Stubblestag, Nibbler, Skidaddler, Pintail.
It’s not just the natural environment to which they relate so well. David undertakes sponsored beer pushes – a marathon with a 75kg-barrel-of beer difference – in aid of It’s On The Ball, a local charity which raises awareness of, and provides support to those affected by, testicular cancer.
David’s latest diversification is an illustrated book, bringing Jigfoot to life. He is ‘the hare who loves to dance’. The book revels in the landscape and wildlife of North Norfolk. At the back is a glossary of the featured creatures and flowers. It’s been a hit with our four-year-old, and we’re already looking forward to tales of his other hare friends.
But back to the National. Moon Gazer has brewed the Shrine its own, exclusive ale. Vision is a twist on Jumper, with a bit of orange peel and Norfolk honey added to the brewing process. It’s very drinkable.
Many of my conversations with clergy over a pint or three of Vision returned to issues around decline in the Church of England, and some of the struggles faced by the Catholic movement in particular. As regular readers of this blog will know, it’s something I’ve been grappling with and praying about during my little pilgrimages across Norfolk.
I think one of the challenges for the Catholic movement is rediscovering a spirit of positivity... of hope. I found myself at the end of the day reflected that one of the charisms at the heart of Walsingham is renewal. This pilgrimage itself is living proof of that. Pilgrimage came to an abrupt halt in Walsingham during the English Reformation, as Pilgrim Hymn we had sung reminded us:
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.
Likewise A Lament for Our Lady’s Shrine, anonymously written around 1600:
Level, level, with the ground
The towers do lie,
Which, with their golden glittering tops,
Pierced once to the sky.
Yet, from this desolation, Fr Alfred Hope Patten raised up a restored, renewed shrine. This National Pilgrimage began life as a procession from the parish church to that newly-built shrine on Whitsun weekend 1938. That the ruins of the Priory are thronged with hundreds of pilgrims every year is, in itself, a sign of renewal.
Another sign of renewal is the warm ecumenical relations which have been nurtured over the last few decades. In 2018, the respective Administrators of the Anglican and Roman Catholic shrines signed a new ecumenical covenant. At this year’s pilgrimage the preacher was the Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London, His Eminence Archbishop Angaelos.
Renewal at Walsingham should not be a surprise, because, at the heart of this place is the ultimate story of renewal: the renewal of the human race through the mystery of the Incarnation. There are those who find this Anglican devotion to Mary distasteful, or just plain wrong. (A few of them turn up each year and protest to this effect.) But love for Mary is love for the pivotal role she plays in the story of our redemption. So love for Mary is love for Jesus. Archbishop Angaelos preached powerfully on her title Theotokos – ‘God-bearer’. He told us, with a friendly swipe at Western Mariology, “‘Mother of God’ doesn’t even cover it!”
Mary’s ‘yes’ to the divine plan begins God’s process of renewal. By the Ave she hears from the angel, Eva’s first rejection of God’s grace is reversed. As J. R. Peacey’s hymn reminds us:
The heavenly call she thus obeyed,
And so God’s will was done;
The second Eve love’s answer made
Which our redemption won.
The Son she bears is that renewal. Through her flesh he takes on our flesh, and renews and redeems that flesh, winning it back to God. “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” (Colossians 1.19-20) That’s why, in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, her titles include ‘Mother of Hope’ and ‘Cause of our Joy’. She is not ‘Mother of Misery’! Our celebration of Mary is, by its very nature, a prayer for the renewal of the Church.
Briefly to return to beer: As if to prove the synergy between altar and bar, pilgrimage and beer, the very ale we were drinking was a sign of renewal too. In the 1970s the future of this industry was bleak. The growth of mass-produced beers led to the wholesale closure of independent breweries. Moon Gazer and Barsham are two brilliant examples of a wave of small-scale, independent breweries which have sprung up over the last twenty years. It’s still a fragile industry, but it is very definitely renewed; even resurrected.
If there’s future for real ale, then there’s surely a future for the Church of England. My post-National prayer, then, is that God might give us what he gave the Lady Richeldis in 1061, and what he gave Fr Patten in the 1920s, and, dare I say it, what the Hollidays had when they started brewing in Hindringham. ‘What’s that?’ I hear you ask. Well, I was drinking it. A pint of Vision.
Joy to thee, Queen! within thine ancient Dowry –
Joy to thee, Queen! for once again thy fame
Is noised abroad and spoken of in England
And thy lost children call upon thy name.
Ladye of Walsingham! be as thou hast been
England’s protectress – Our Mother and our Queen.
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