‘Give me a rural church like this over a gilded urban cathedral any day.’ Absolutely. I wonder as I read - do you feel more at home (building wise) in these rural English churches than in a traditional Orthodox temple? I think I would say I do.
I know what you mean here and I think I would agree. Just because the Anglican church has lost its way somewhat in recent times, trying to appease every minority interest, it doesn't wipe out the centuries of history, devotion and prayer that the physical building has absorbed, even if one might find the current interpretation of the faith somewhat puzzling or troubling.
In that respect it seems perfectly reasonable to feel at home in such a building, when it's part of your native land and culture.
I am a Catholic (convert through my mother’s remarriage when I was 8) who was born in Indiana, but lived most of my life in Massachusetts & New York. I have always found small stone & wood (natural materials - as opposed to the 60’s & 70’s concrete monstrosities of ‘modern’ architecture) to be my favorites. I have loved the look & feel of most any Anglican church I’ve ever been in.
Can’t stand most of the modern ‘sound stage’ style architecture of mega “praise & worship” churches. (Though unlike most conservative ‘trad’ type Catholics - I actually like their music. But I am a guitar liturgy kind of guy and was a church musician for 40 years before the neo-trads tossed us all out.) Put me in a small wood & stone church with a John Michael Talbott (or a steel string version) and I am ‘home’. I don’t think I could take the Orthodox approach - too ornate and hours long standing services of chant - I’d crumble and die. More power to you for whom that leads you to worship though. I admire your fortitude.
Yes, very much so. I love the beauty of Orthodox churches, but I don't feel culturally at home in them in the same way. An English parish church is the church of my people. I felt that way long before I was Christian, interestingly.
I agree, but I think this changes the longer you're Orthodox (30 years for me). You get more accustomed to the whole Eastern "thing." BUT... this in no way means that your cultural/familial attachments to your history have to dwindle.
This was brought home to me a few years back when I was visiting a nearby college town and there was a small fundamentalist "revival" going on in the town square. As I walked by and heard the music someone stopped me and handed me a tract and a mini New Testament. I told him I didn't need the tract, as I was already a believer, but would keep the NT (I still have it in my car). Listening to them brought back memories, and I even stayed and sang a couple songs with them. Now I hadn't experienced anything like that for upwards of 40 years, but despite that the attraction was still there, and as an Orthodox I saw absolutely nothing amiss about that!
In religious/spiritual terms I feel a lot more 'at home' in an Orthodox church now than in an Anglican one, even if half the liturgy is in a foreign language. Architecturally and culturally, in some kind of half-mystical Tolkeinish sense, the England country church is still my home though.
I'm a great admirer of Ronald Blythe's work, and I've often thought that if Anglicanism/Episcopalianism (I'm American) would have maintained a traditional "rural spirit" manifest in Blythe's and others' descriptions I might have never felt a need to leave it behind. This is not to say that I'm not grateful for my move to Orthodoxy, mind you. Not at all! But if the Episcopal Church had stayed true to its traditions my journey probably would have been rather different.
I must say also that I too find myself attracted to rural American churches irrespective of denomination. I spent my formative childhood years as a Baptist, and thus there is still something appealing to me to about those sorts of churches (mine was more suburban than rural, but it was old, and had a smalltown feel to it).
I agree with you, Paul, on the multimedia industrial worship complexes. I have never been to Lourdes, but think that I will pass on it, even if I eventually convert (but don't hold your breath that I will convert to Catholicism before... Voltaire converted to Catholicism, on his deathbed, even if I really don't care for Voltaire at all).
The multimedia industrial worship complexes are a little bit like the multimedia industrial historical complexes, a form of mass tourism that seems to me to be light years away from the long ago pilgrimages, maybe because we are no longer the same Man ?
Nothing like multimedia mass industrial complexes to denature our experience of the world, and give us hunger for silence and isolation from our brother ?
I think all pilgrimages have always had mass media vibes - Chaucer’s descriptions of pilgrimages c 1340 is certainly riotous. Groups of people in an intense situation create a vibe. And preparation must be done just to ensure basic sleep, food, and handling of excretions. So the mass media stuff doesn’t bother me. It’s necessary. I prefer a quiet place myself but a number of friends thrive on the big pilgrimages.
I'm not sure about what you have written. Chaucer's descriptions of pilgrimage which you say are riotous do not fit with my ideas about modern mass media organisation, basically because I think that ongoing civilisation in the Western world has made us a hell of a lot less riotous, and less alive too, in the places where we are currently living.
Many of us are afraid to be alive, moreover, as I say here often.
I think that the mass media organisation of almost everything is designed to make us feel safe, and comfortable, and to that end, it enters into conflict with a vibrant experience.
That said, in France, I know several people who have been on parts of the Compostelle pilgrimage, and on a day to day basis, without throngs of people agglomerated, it seems still alive to me, even for some non-believers, who just want the chance to walk for long distances, and find shelter and companionship along the way. And maybe that is the most important part about these pilgrimages anyway, without even necessarily a whiff of big throngs ?
Since you asked:) There are four major Basilicas and they are all located in Rome )St. Peter's, St. John Lateran (which is an Arch Basilica), St. Mary Major, St. Paul Outside the Walls - built over the tomb of St. Paul. All other Basilicas are minor - no matter how big or small because they are not in Rome. I admit one of my favorite churches is St, Mary's, Two Inlets, Minnesota where weather permitting, Mass is held outside in the Grotto under the pines and not far from a creek. The music is better in an old Cathedral though - something about all the people and craftsman that are part of a beautiful Church - well that gets to me too.
Thanks for this. I have been to St Paul Outside the Walls, the church of my name saint. i hadn't realised his relics are (probably) there until I visited.
Believe it or not, but his sarcophagus was only excavated in 2005 and the bones found inside dated to the first century. I was there in 1999, when they hadn't recovered the relics yet and then later in 2015 when they were displayed. Now that I am Orthodox I would love to go back and actually venerate the relics. The Church is not as crowded, probably because it is further outside the city.
Minor Basilica is a Church of historical and architectural value which has "particular importance for the liturgical and pastoral life" of some place. In essence, it is the Pope's Church in some place around the world. Minor Basilicas are specifically tasked with celebrating the feasts of the liturgical year with great care and attention. "The word of God is to be diligently proclaimed either in homilies or in special sermons. The active participation of the faithful is to be promoted both in the eucharistic celebration and in the celebration of the liturgy of the hours."
In addition to excellence in the fostering of the Sacred Liturgy, Minor Basilicas are to be places of instruction in the Catholic Faith and evangelization.
All of these mammoth tasks are certainly beyond any priest. They are the universal work of the Church! For this reason, all the faithful of the parish are encouraged to be an active part of the mission of the Minor Basilica.
There are only four Major Basilicas: St. Peter's, St. John Latteran, St. Mary Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls. These four Churches are particularly connected to the Pope in history and in practice. All other Basilicas are thus "Minor" Basilicas.
Silence is Golden! Give me a small parish Church any day! In fact your photos of the "Slipper Chapel reminded me of the small, silent chapel of the local Church of my childhood, at St Peters London Docks, E.1. Oh how this posting and the previous ones on Walsingham enflames my Heart and I cant wait to go! Many blessings and Love to you Paul and Family x x
I used be taken to walsingham with my school which was roman catholic in 70s . My upbringing and experience inside England was one of a surround of deep religious roots and routes. Our route was the annual sojourn to Ireland and our church in Essex was populated by 2nd 3rd 4th generation immigrant groups...for the Irish church was 'home' . We were made actutely aware of english catholicism as Mary hickman explains that when the Irish came in their droves to England the English catholic church went into an unwritten alliance with the state to renationalise and depoliticise Irish children, to prove loyalty to the crow. ...thus patrick and brigid entered parish churches on the island of England and during the 70s troubles the church was the face of greet and meet for the Irish community . The minority positions of English catholicism bred a resilience of faith under persecution. When I moved to Ireland I was lost inside Irish catholicism which was being discarded in great rapidity and had been state allied, the antithesis to England. As it stands now it's familiar..a minority of die hards fixed on shrine , well and faith .. unity of the islands of Ireland and Scotland Wales England and identities herein finds infinite satiation for me inside land shrines and sacred meetings. .ax these nations .. I was taught difference and in christ we see England needs liberty that speaks in its land history .....I was here, you forgot me, you slayed me christ rises through trees and whispering leaves and those who didn't forget the way ... i stil have a deep nudge when they give back the elgan marbles will they hand us back at least some of our churches. The transfer of land to the aristocracy after the dissolution of the monasteries makes it even now impossible to discuss the blood of martyrs the loss of England's pilgrim sound.
"I always find that prayer seems more real when you can hear nothing but birdsong and wind. I suppose that God can be found anywhere. Maybe, though, he can only really be heard in silence."
There seems to be always a tension between the need for solitude ("be still and know that I am God") and the call to community ("come let US worship and bow down...").
Our "always connected" world of devices seems to make both solitude and community harder to attain.
I read a quote years ago that has always stuck with me, and I wish I remembered who it was from and where. It went something like, "Modernity seems almost designed to keep us from contemplation."
Bill McKibben once wrote that the average person in the West cannot go on average ten minutes without hearing an internal combustion engine of some sort. It's very sad that silence and quiet, which were once taken for granted, now have to be searched for and sought out. And even then the quiet that you do find is relative -- even in the quietest forest planes still fly overhead.
There are very few places left in the world that are purely silent. Gordon Hempton wrote One Square Inch of Silence about this. He was interviewed on On Being awhile ago.
When I walk there are days when the noise from the main road roars up. Others when I just hear the wind and birds. Depends on the direction of the wind.
True, but we've always had the sounds of nature, at least when we're out of doors -- the notions of quiet and silence take that into consideration, I'd say.
Yes. But road noise, jet noise, train noise can thread through the sounds of nature. If you can find a spot that excludes any human or machine noise you’re very lucky. I’ve stopped pretty much listening to podcasts because I want to listen to the natural world and my own thoughts. Martin Shaw is the exception.
Great observation… finding true solitude is incredibly difficult. And if we do find it, still a challenge to keep ourselves from getting distracted with our own thoughts!
There are city churches - even quite big ones - where the veil between past devotions and the present feels very thin. Great Saint Barts in Smithfield - all that is left of the Priory founded there by Prior Rahir in 1123 - is one such. Most of the estate, which included nearby Barts Hospital and the smaller chapel in its grounds, was razed during the Reformation. We are left with the old Quire. But sit in there any day of the week and close your eyes. It is very easy to be transported back and to feel all the generations that worshipped before you only a breath away. But thanks to these two weeks of Paul's writing about Walsingham I am considering making a Lent pilgrimage from London. I did Winchester to Canterbury five years ago. It was an extraordinary experience. Many of the kinds of rural churches Paul writes about, although at the time a lot were closed due to Covid. But just traversing the English countryside in spring at walking pace can be extraordinary. You walk under motorways. Cars rush past, especially when you get to the Home Counties section. Seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling the land day after day makes you appreciate it so much more. God is indeed everywhere. Walsingham is a 180mmile walk. The guide book advises either 14 miles a day - too much at my age - or 7. If anyone fancies joining at any stage on any day please leave a comment. At the slower rate it will take 26 days. I aim to arrive on Maundy Thursday.
Beautiful Church or Minor Basilica. Helps to get in the right frame of mind. My Dad would go out behind our barn to pray. Was a quiet secluded spot. Was also where I would hide and smoke cigarettes. Its all about what's in our hearts I guess, God sees it all.
I was there in the late 70s as a reluctant teenager on a church pilgrimage. I also went to Lourdes at a similar age. Actually- putting aside the unnecessary commercial extras- I did feel a positive spiritual presence. It was not from the structures of the places but from the community who gathered together- praying, having fears hopes and needs. All part of the large global- very human- melting pot of human experience.
How exactly did Henry incite mobs to attack holy places? Did he issue a royal edict? Was it the same with the monasteries? My English history is weak around this period. Any recommended reading?
Henry's 'reforms' of the church, which famously began because he wanted to get divorced, spiralled out of control and led to the mass destruction by protestants of much of the Catholic landscape. Henry was not a protestant, but he was happy to take the fruits of this work for himself.
'The Stripping of the Altars' by Eamon Duffy is maybe the classic book not only on what was destroyed, but also on what the English medieval landscape looked like before it happened.
I read Duffy last year. It's a tough read at times because he quotes from medieval texts, which are difficult to get through. But he makes a compelling case about the role "tradtional religion" had in the culture.
Ooh, I love the walking barefoot part! I used to hike barefoot as a child/young woman all the time. My whole body would feel so much more alive and connected to the earth. I would definitely be a barefoot pilgrim if I came here. I’m enjoying the thought as I look at -22C weather and snow on the ground in Canada: different kind of mindfulness challenge, more a St Agnes Eve vibe:
Have you ever heard of a group call Friends of Friendless Church’s . Based in Wales and England they restore abandoned rural churches. They do amazing work on a shoestring budget. https://friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/
Worth checking them out , I love the historical perspectives they provide for their Church projects, including how many times old or abandoned churches have been desecrated and working with locals who have protected these places they have been able to consecrate them anew! A triumph!
I have found this two part description of Walsingham particularly interesting. Walsingham played a small but significant part in my return to Christian belief. Looking back on it now, my journey towards Orthodox Christianity appears to have a sense of inevitability about it, rather as though my spiritual rudder was being quietly adjusted unbeknownst to me. That course of travel away from my avowed, and rather bolshy, atheism in my twenties and early thirties, involved me stumbling into a number of spiritual encounters, each of which seemed to breach the carapace of my stubborn, yet discontented, and entirely voluntarily adopted unbelief. One of the earliest of these, was in my early thirties, I was staying with friends at a coastal location a number of miles from Walsingham. My children were young then, and friend and I took our respective children for a drive to Walsingham. It was a rather grey, overcast day, and whatever route we took seemed to take us down a good few winding country lanes. Just outside Walsingham, as I drove slowly down a very English country road, I slowed the car, and put it to the edge of the road, to allow a procession of people heading towards me pass by us safely. One of my sons excitedly shouted out from the back of the car
"Jesus is walking in front of them Dad!". A bearded man was carrying a heavy looking crucifix over his shoulder and was dragging its base along the road. He was dressed in white cotton in a style consistent with the time of Christ. I suddenly realised, it was Good Friday, and to my shame I realised I was completely unaware of it! As the cross - bearer stepped towards me, I felt completely overwhelmed by an emotion of sadness and guilt, and unexpected tears came to my eyes. I think I tried to make light of it, but behind my flippant dismissal of my reaction to my friend and my children. I knew I had been touched more than I could have ever have expected. If my atheistic self could be represented as a merchant vessel crossing a stormy Atlantic at the height of world war two, I had just received two torpedoes to my hull and I was holed below the water line, and what's more I kind of knew it. In Walsingham I visited the Chapels, and felt emotional throughout, despite acting as though I was just my normal cynical 31 year old self. I ended up in the Orthodox Church, which I was intrigued by, since it occupied a converted railway station. I talked to a bearded Orthodox Priest or Deacon who had a table full of Icons he was selling. I nearly bought one, but my leathery old heart wasn't wounded sufficiently yet to permit this to occur. I left Walsingham feeling quite disturbed, I wasn't quite sure what had happened, but it didn't feel comfortable. I suppose the sound of water pouring into the hold of a torpedoed vessel, must be pretty disturbing too. My friend also seemed rather unsettled by the place. She pronounced it to be eery and a bit "weird". When we returned, we ate, got the kids to bed, and then got hammered on red Bulgarian plonk. By the second bottle we had found a rational "explanation" to our earlier sense of disturbance. I did however mark the experience off in my mind , and over the next six months my thoughts returned to it frequently. It, much later, joined a large number of other experiences I came to recount, when as a Catechumen, my Orthodox Priest asked me to write down any significant occasions which I felt had nudged me in the direction of Orthodox Christianity. The "converted railway station" Orthodox Chapel had genuinely intrigued me, I was hitherto unaware of the Orthodox veneration of the Mother of God, and it's location in the heart of this very medieval English shrine fascinated me too . I had never considered the possibility of sacred places existing around me as being remotely possible in the secular Britain I then dwelled in. This experience, lifted the layers laid down by centuries of English protestantism, and more recently, secularist atheism, to give me a glimpse of an older England, an England then known throughout Christendom as "Mary's Dowry". It was, I feel, a moving glimpse into a world I thought no longer existed. A beautiful, enchanted world which was further revealed to me in abundance by my entry into that unchanging mysticism found in the realm of Orthodox Christianity. I am very grateful for that first glimpse, and what was yet to be revealed. Should God grants me this blessing, I hope for these revelations to continue.
‘Give me a rural church like this over a gilded urban cathedral any day.’ Absolutely. I wonder as I read - do you feel more at home (building wise) in these rural English churches than in a traditional Orthodox temple? I think I would say I do.
I know what you mean here and I think I would agree. Just because the Anglican church has lost its way somewhat in recent times, trying to appease every minority interest, it doesn't wipe out the centuries of history, devotion and prayer that the physical building has absorbed, even if one might find the current interpretation of the faith somewhat puzzling or troubling.
In that respect it seems perfectly reasonable to feel at home in such a building, when it's part of your native land and culture.
Yes, I find those buildings have an atmosphere (from their history) very spiritual and conducive to prayer.
I am a Catholic (convert through my mother’s remarriage when I was 8) who was born in Indiana, but lived most of my life in Massachusetts & New York. I have always found small stone & wood (natural materials - as opposed to the 60’s & 70’s concrete monstrosities of ‘modern’ architecture) to be my favorites. I have loved the look & feel of most any Anglican church I’ve ever been in.
Can’t stand most of the modern ‘sound stage’ style architecture of mega “praise & worship” churches. (Though unlike most conservative ‘trad’ type Catholics - I actually like their music. But I am a guitar liturgy kind of guy and was a church musician for 40 years before the neo-trads tossed us all out.) Put me in a small wood & stone church with a John Michael Talbott (or a steel string version) and I am ‘home’. I don’t think I could take the Orthodox approach - too ornate and hours long standing services of chant - I’d crumble and die. More power to you for whom that leads you to worship though. I admire your fortitude.
Yes, very much so. I love the beauty of Orthodox churches, but I don't feel culturally at home in them in the same way. An English parish church is the church of my people. I felt that way long before I was Christian, interestingly.
I agree, but I think this changes the longer you're Orthodox (30 years for me). You get more accustomed to the whole Eastern "thing." BUT... this in no way means that your cultural/familial attachments to your history have to dwindle.
This was brought home to me a few years back when I was visiting a nearby college town and there was a small fundamentalist "revival" going on in the town square. As I walked by and heard the music someone stopped me and handed me a tract and a mini New Testament. I told him I didn't need the tract, as I was already a believer, but would keep the NT (I still have it in my car). Listening to them brought back memories, and I even stayed and sang a couple songs with them. Now I hadn't experienced anything like that for upwards of 40 years, but despite that the attraction was still there, and as an Orthodox I saw absolutely nothing amiss about that!
In religious/spiritual terms I feel a lot more 'at home' in an Orthodox church now than in an Anglican one, even if half the liturgy is in a foreign language. Architecturally and culturally, in some kind of half-mystical Tolkeinish sense, the England country church is still my home though.
Yep, I completely understand.
I'm a great admirer of Ronald Blythe's work, and I've often thought that if Anglicanism/Episcopalianism (I'm American) would have maintained a traditional "rural spirit" manifest in Blythe's and others' descriptions I might have never felt a need to leave it behind. This is not to say that I'm not grateful for my move to Orthodoxy, mind you. Not at all! But if the Episcopal Church had stayed true to its traditions my journey probably would have been rather different.
I must say also that I too find myself attracted to rural American churches irrespective of denomination. I spent my formative childhood years as a Baptist, and thus there is still something appealing to me to about those sorts of churches (mine was more suburban than rural, but it was old, and had a smalltown feel to it).
Here, here. (or.. hear, hear ?)
I agree with you, Paul, on the multimedia industrial worship complexes. I have never been to Lourdes, but think that I will pass on it, even if I eventually convert (but don't hold your breath that I will convert to Catholicism before... Voltaire converted to Catholicism, on his deathbed, even if I really don't care for Voltaire at all).
The multimedia industrial worship complexes are a little bit like the multimedia industrial historical complexes, a form of mass tourism that seems to me to be light years away from the long ago pilgrimages, maybe because we are no longer the same Man ?
Nothing like multimedia mass industrial complexes to denature our experience of the world, and give us hunger for silence and isolation from our brother ?
I think all pilgrimages have always had mass media vibes - Chaucer’s descriptions of pilgrimages c 1340 is certainly riotous. Groups of people in an intense situation create a vibe. And preparation must be done just to ensure basic sleep, food, and handling of excretions. So the mass media stuff doesn’t bother me. It’s necessary. I prefer a quiet place myself but a number of friends thrive on the big pilgrimages.
I'm not sure about what you have written. Chaucer's descriptions of pilgrimage which you say are riotous do not fit with my ideas about modern mass media organisation, basically because I think that ongoing civilisation in the Western world has made us a hell of a lot less riotous, and less alive too, in the places where we are currently living.
Many of us are afraid to be alive, moreover, as I say here often.
I think that the mass media organisation of almost everything is designed to make us feel safe, and comfortable, and to that end, it enters into conflict with a vibrant experience.
That said, in France, I know several people who have been on parts of the Compostelle pilgrimage, and on a day to day basis, without throngs of people agglomerated, it seems still alive to me, even for some non-believers, who just want the chance to walk for long distances, and find shelter and companionship along the way. And maybe that is the most important part about these pilgrimages anyway, without even necessarily a whiff of big throngs ?
Since you asked:) There are four major Basilicas and they are all located in Rome )St. Peter's, St. John Lateran (which is an Arch Basilica), St. Mary Major, St. Paul Outside the Walls - built over the tomb of St. Paul. All other Basilicas are minor - no matter how big or small because they are not in Rome. I admit one of my favorite churches is St, Mary's, Two Inlets, Minnesota where weather permitting, Mass is held outside in the Grotto under the pines and not far from a creek. The music is better in an old Cathedral though - something about all the people and craftsman that are part of a beautiful Church - well that gets to me too.
Thanks for this. I have been to St Paul Outside the Walls, the church of my name saint. i hadn't realised his relics are (probably) there until I visited.
Indeed. One of my favourite churches. I felt more of that sense of deep peace than the other three major basilicas.
Believe it or not, but his sarcophagus was only excavated in 2005 and the bones found inside dated to the first century. I was there in 1999, when they hadn't recovered the relics yet and then later in 2015 when they were displayed. Now that I am Orthodox I would love to go back and actually venerate the relics. The Church is not as crowded, probably because it is further outside the city.
Yes, I've been there, too. An awesome church!
Minor Basilica is a Church of historical and architectural value which has "particular importance for the liturgical and pastoral life" of some place. In essence, it is the Pope's Church in some place around the world. Minor Basilicas are specifically tasked with celebrating the feasts of the liturgical year with great care and attention. "The word of God is to be diligently proclaimed either in homilies or in special sermons. The active participation of the faithful is to be promoted both in the eucharistic celebration and in the celebration of the liturgy of the hours."
In addition to excellence in the fostering of the Sacred Liturgy, Minor Basilicas are to be places of instruction in the Catholic Faith and evangelization.
All of these mammoth tasks are certainly beyond any priest. They are the universal work of the Church! For this reason, all the faithful of the parish are encouraged to be an active part of the mission of the Minor Basilica.
There are only four Major Basilicas: St. Peter's, St. John Latteran, St. Mary Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls. These four Churches are particularly connected to the Pope in history and in practice. All other Basilicas are thus "Minor" Basilicas.
Thanks for this; now I have learned something new!
Silence is Golden! Give me a small parish Church any day! In fact your photos of the "Slipper Chapel reminded me of the small, silent chapel of the local Church of my childhood, at St Peters London Docks, E.1. Oh how this posting and the previous ones on Walsingham enflames my Heart and I cant wait to go! Many blessings and Love to you Paul and Family x x
I used be taken to walsingham with my school which was roman catholic in 70s . My upbringing and experience inside England was one of a surround of deep religious roots and routes. Our route was the annual sojourn to Ireland and our church in Essex was populated by 2nd 3rd 4th generation immigrant groups...for the Irish church was 'home' . We were made actutely aware of english catholicism as Mary hickman explains that when the Irish came in their droves to England the English catholic church went into an unwritten alliance with the state to renationalise and depoliticise Irish children, to prove loyalty to the crow. ...thus patrick and brigid entered parish churches on the island of England and during the 70s troubles the church was the face of greet and meet for the Irish community . The minority positions of English catholicism bred a resilience of faith under persecution. When I moved to Ireland I was lost inside Irish catholicism which was being discarded in great rapidity and had been state allied, the antithesis to England. As it stands now it's familiar..a minority of die hards fixed on shrine , well and faith .. unity of the islands of Ireland and Scotland Wales England and identities herein finds infinite satiation for me inside land shrines and sacred meetings. .ax these nations .. I was taught difference and in christ we see England needs liberty that speaks in its land history .....I was here, you forgot me, you slayed me christ rises through trees and whispering leaves and those who didn't forget the way ... i stil have a deep nudge when they give back the elgan marbles will they hand us back at least some of our churches. The transfer of land to the aristocracy after the dissolution of the monasteries makes it even now impossible to discuss the blood of martyrs the loss of England's pilgrim sound.
"I always find that prayer seems more real when you can hear nothing but birdsong and wind. I suppose that God can be found anywhere. Maybe, though, he can only really be heard in silence."
There seems to be always a tension between the need for solitude ("be still and know that I am God") and the call to community ("come let US worship and bow down...").
Our "always connected" world of devices seems to make both solitude and community harder to attain.
I read a quote years ago that has always stuck with me, and I wish I remembered who it was from and where. It went something like, "Modernity seems almost designed to keep us from contemplation."
Bill McKibben once wrote that the average person in the West cannot go on average ten minutes without hearing an internal combustion engine of some sort. It's very sad that silence and quiet, which were once taken for granted, now have to be searched for and sought out. And even then the quiet that you do find is relative -- even in the quietest forest planes still fly overhead.
There are very few places left in the world that are purely silent. Gordon Hempton wrote One Square Inch of Silence about this. He was interviewed on On Being awhile ago.
When I walk there are days when the noise from the main road roars up. Others when I just hear the wind and birds. Depends on the direction of the wind.
True, but we've always had the sounds of nature, at least when we're out of doors -- the notions of quiet and silence take that into consideration, I'd say.
Yes. But road noise, jet noise, train noise can thread through the sounds of nature. If you can find a spot that excludes any human or machine noise you’re very lucky. I’ve stopped pretty much listening to podcasts because I want to listen to the natural world and my own thoughts. Martin Shaw is the exception.
"If you can find a spot that excludes any human or machine noise you’re very lucky."
Exactly my point.
Ah
Great observation… finding true solitude is incredibly difficult. And if we do find it, still a challenge to keep ourselves from getting distracted with our own thoughts!
Rock n Roll's "wall of sound" has been suggested to have that precise role.
Thank you so much for this continuing series. Here was my recent pilgrimage there: https://comment.org/the-secret-of-walsingham/
I like that Walshngham Way was compared to the Milky Way.
There are city churches - even quite big ones - where the veil between past devotions and the present feels very thin. Great Saint Barts in Smithfield - all that is left of the Priory founded there by Prior Rahir in 1123 - is one such. Most of the estate, which included nearby Barts Hospital and the smaller chapel in its grounds, was razed during the Reformation. We are left with the old Quire. But sit in there any day of the week and close your eyes. It is very easy to be transported back and to feel all the generations that worshipped before you only a breath away. But thanks to these two weeks of Paul's writing about Walsingham I am considering making a Lent pilgrimage from London. I did Winchester to Canterbury five years ago. It was an extraordinary experience. Many of the kinds of rural churches Paul writes about, although at the time a lot were closed due to Covid. But just traversing the English countryside in spring at walking pace can be extraordinary. You walk under motorways. Cars rush past, especially when you get to the Home Counties section. Seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling the land day after day makes you appreciate it so much more. God is indeed everywhere. Walsingham is a 180mmile walk. The guide book advises either 14 miles a day - too much at my age - or 7. If anyone fancies joining at any stage on any day please leave a comment. At the slower rate it will take 26 days. I aim to arrive on Maundy Thursday.
Beautiful Church or Minor Basilica. Helps to get in the right frame of mind. My Dad would go out behind our barn to pray. Was a quiet secluded spot. Was also where I would hide and smoke cigarettes. Its all about what's in our hearts I guess, God sees it all.
I was there in the late 70s as a reluctant teenager on a church pilgrimage. I also went to Lourdes at a similar age. Actually- putting aside the unnecessary commercial extras- I did feel a positive spiritual presence. It was not from the structures of the places but from the community who gathered together- praying, having fears hopes and needs. All part of the large global- very human- melting pot of human experience.
Yes, and one can also find solitude at Lourdes. Might have to look but it’s possible.
How exactly did Henry incite mobs to attack holy places? Did he issue a royal edict? Was it the same with the monasteries? My English history is weak around this period. Any recommended reading?
An act of parliament dissolved the monasteries and associated religious sites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Reformation#Dissolution_of_the_monasteries
Henry's 'reforms' of the church, which famously began because he wanted to get divorced, spiralled out of control and led to the mass destruction by protestants of much of the Catholic landscape. Henry was not a protestant, but he was happy to take the fruits of this work for himself.
Thank you, Paul.
'The Stripping of the Altars' by Eamon Duffy is maybe the classic book not only on what was destroyed, but also on what the English medieval landscape looked like before it happened.
Thank you, again. I was wondering what might be good books about this.
I read Duffy last year. It's a tough read at times because he quotes from medieval texts, which are difficult to get through. But he makes a compelling case about the role "tradtional religion" had in the culture.
I think Henry also wanted the huge transfer of land, golden and jewel encrusted reliquaries etc.
You might enjoy this short film about Croagh Patrick, produced in the 90s before the site became overly commercialized.
https://youtu.be/91Ilsr9_AXA?feature=shared
It is one of a series of 12 films on pilgrimage sites throughout Europe.
Another pilgrimage site on my bucket list!
Ooh, I love the walking barefoot part! I used to hike barefoot as a child/young woman all the time. My whole body would feel so much more alive and connected to the earth. I would definitely be a barefoot pilgrim if I came here. I’m enjoying the thought as I look at -22C weather and snow on the ground in Canada: different kind of mindfulness challenge, more a St Agnes Eve vibe:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45388/st-agnes-eve
Have you ever heard of a group call Friends of Friendless Church’s . Based in Wales and England they restore abandoned rural churches. They do amazing work on a shoestring budget. https://friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/
Worth checking them out , I love the historical perspectives they provide for their Church projects, including how many times old or abandoned churches have been desecrated and working with locals who have protected these places they have been able to consecrate them anew! A triumph!
Yes indeed! I wrote about them in one of my holy well visits:
https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/sing-levy-dew
I have found this two part description of Walsingham particularly interesting. Walsingham played a small but significant part in my return to Christian belief. Looking back on it now, my journey towards Orthodox Christianity appears to have a sense of inevitability about it, rather as though my spiritual rudder was being quietly adjusted unbeknownst to me. That course of travel away from my avowed, and rather bolshy, atheism in my twenties and early thirties, involved me stumbling into a number of spiritual encounters, each of which seemed to breach the carapace of my stubborn, yet discontented, and entirely voluntarily adopted unbelief. One of the earliest of these, was in my early thirties, I was staying with friends at a coastal location a number of miles from Walsingham. My children were young then, and friend and I took our respective children for a drive to Walsingham. It was a rather grey, overcast day, and whatever route we took seemed to take us down a good few winding country lanes. Just outside Walsingham, as I drove slowly down a very English country road, I slowed the car, and put it to the edge of the road, to allow a procession of people heading towards me pass by us safely. One of my sons excitedly shouted out from the back of the car
"Jesus is walking in front of them Dad!". A bearded man was carrying a heavy looking crucifix over his shoulder and was dragging its base along the road. He was dressed in white cotton in a style consistent with the time of Christ. I suddenly realised, it was Good Friday, and to my shame I realised I was completely unaware of it! As the cross - bearer stepped towards me, I felt completely overwhelmed by an emotion of sadness and guilt, and unexpected tears came to my eyes. I think I tried to make light of it, but behind my flippant dismissal of my reaction to my friend and my children. I knew I had been touched more than I could have ever have expected. If my atheistic self could be represented as a merchant vessel crossing a stormy Atlantic at the height of world war two, I had just received two torpedoes to my hull and I was holed below the water line, and what's more I kind of knew it. In Walsingham I visited the Chapels, and felt emotional throughout, despite acting as though I was just my normal cynical 31 year old self. I ended up in the Orthodox Church, which I was intrigued by, since it occupied a converted railway station. I talked to a bearded Orthodox Priest or Deacon who had a table full of Icons he was selling. I nearly bought one, but my leathery old heart wasn't wounded sufficiently yet to permit this to occur. I left Walsingham feeling quite disturbed, I wasn't quite sure what had happened, but it didn't feel comfortable. I suppose the sound of water pouring into the hold of a torpedoed vessel, must be pretty disturbing too. My friend also seemed rather unsettled by the place. She pronounced it to be eery and a bit "weird". When we returned, we ate, got the kids to bed, and then got hammered on red Bulgarian plonk. By the second bottle we had found a rational "explanation" to our earlier sense of disturbance. I did however mark the experience off in my mind , and over the next six months my thoughts returned to it frequently. It, much later, joined a large number of other experiences I came to recount, when as a Catechumen, my Orthodox Priest asked me to write down any significant occasions which I felt had nudged me in the direction of Orthodox Christianity. The "converted railway station" Orthodox Chapel had genuinely intrigued me, I was hitherto unaware of the Orthodox veneration of the Mother of God, and it's location in the heart of this very medieval English shrine fascinated me too . I had never considered the possibility of sacred places existing around me as being remotely possible in the secular Britain I then dwelled in. This experience, lifted the layers laid down by centuries of English protestantism, and more recently, secularist atheism, to give me a glimpse of an older England, an England then known throughout Christendom as "Mary's Dowry". It was, I feel, a moving glimpse into a world I thought no longer existed. A beautiful, enchanted world which was further revealed to me in abundance by my entry into that unchanging mysticism found in the realm of Orthodox Christianity. I am very grateful for that first glimpse, and what was yet to be revealed. Should God grants me this blessing, I hope for these revelations to continue.