September 2025 (taken from The Link Magazine)

Dear All,

On 19th to 21st September, we will be having our Parishes’ Pilgrimage to Walsingham. Please think of us!

I have been going to the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham for almost 40 years since I was an Ordinand studying at Oxford and it is for me a really important “Touching Place” – a place where the veil between everyday reality and Eternity is thin, where I can be still and sense the presence of God.

Fifteen of us will be going over this weekend and there will be a programme of activities, such as the first visit to the Holy House, a walk to the Slipper Chapel, Stations of the Cross and a Torchlit Procession – all are welcome to join in with whatever they fancy with no obligation!

We will have time to be quiet and to pray. we will lift up into God’s presence all three Parishes with Churchwardens, Officers and P.C.C.s: we will pray for the sick, for those we love, for those we worry about: for those who have gone before us whom we remember and miss. It will be an opportunity for us, in our busy lives, just for a while to “be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10)

I am aware that it would probably not be everyone’s cup of tea: but the Anglican Shrine at Walsingham is a place that matters and where a powerful “spiritual alchemy” happens : it’s a place where, as T. S. Eliot puts it in “Little Gidding “ from “The Four Quartets”:

“You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity Or carry report. You are here to kneel Where prayer has been valid.”

That’s what we will be doing: kneeling where prayer has been valid.

We will be praying for you: pray for us.

Love Fr. John