Tuesday 19 August 2008

A Few More Pictures From Walsingham.

Felbrigg.

A medieval rood screen showing the wreckage left by protestant reformers.

Doorway at Felbrigg.

Dining room at Felbrigg House.

Walsingham Manor.

Thirsty pilgrims.

Blickling Hall.

Sunday Mass in the Parish Church (as opposed to the Shrine Church) at Walsingham.

The restored petition board. The Nativity altar has been well restored as well.

Chapel behind the Assumption Altar.

The restored barn Chapel in Walsingham.

Felbrigg House. You can see 'Gloria in Excelsis Deo' in the fretwork.

Christ the King, South Creake.

Our Lady's, South Creake.

The inside of the Orthodox Church.

The outside of the Orthodox Church in Great Walsingham.

Dragon candlesticks at the Shrine.

I have some pictures of Stamford and it's Churches to share with you, but I also have these few pictures from in and around Walsingham to show. No trip to the shrine would be complete, of course, without a trip out to Our Lady, South Creake. I have posted extensively about this blessed place before, but here are one or two pictures for old times sake! The dragon candles are used for solemn Benediction and are very fine, in fact I seem to recall an argument on the New Liturgical Movement a while back surrounding larger versions of these and an acolyte called a Dragonifer or something exotic, who was vested with the responsibility of lighting them in a far flung Cathedral a long time ago. The country houses are nice to look at and visit and there we are. I am not sure if sharing my holiday snaps constitutes a good use of your time or mine, but you never know.

Somewhat grim news in the Manchester Evening News today as an RC Priest pleads guilty to 27 counts of child abuse. The thing which hits me hard over all this is that he was abusing boys at my Prep School, while I was there. I moved from there to my Senior School and the exact same thing was happening there as well, it transpired some years later, again involving Priests, again when I was there. How often is this replicated and how long will it be before we find out how many other times this sort of behaviour has been ignored. Ireland is loosing it's faith through this, vocations are drying up, my French Priest friend tells me that he gets spat on in the street if he wears his dog collar. As people there said to him, 'you people came to our village, you told us stories which were beautiful, you said you loved us, but now we find out you were lying to us and abusing our children. Leave us.' Hard to argue with that really, isn't it? This is the world we begin ministering in, God help us and keep us.