This year, for the first time, we will celebrate Our Lady of Walsingham as a liturgical feast; previously it has been a memoria, but Rome has granted permission for the elevation of the celebration, partly because of the importance of this national shrine to the English people.

The shrine was established in 1061, following the appearance of Our Lady to a local noblewoman, Lady Richeldis of Walsingham, who had a great devotion to Our Lady. A fifteenth-century ballad (known as the Pynson Ballad after its publisher) describes the vision:

Our Lady led Richeldis in spirit to Nazareth and showed her the house where the angel had greeted her. ‘Look, daughter’ said Our Lady. ‘Take the measurements of this house and erect another one like it in Walsingham, dedicated to praising and honouring me. All who come there shall find help in their need.

‘It shall be a perpetual memorial to the great joy of the Annunciation, ground and origin of all my joys and the root of humanity’s gracious Redemption. This came about through Gabriel’s message that I would be a mother through my humility, and conceive God’s Son in virginity.’  [Pynson Ballad 1485]

The holy house was built and was a great international centre of pilgrimage until its destruction in 1538 during the Reformation. The public restoration of the shrine began at the end of the nineteenth century and in 1934 the Slipper Chapel, a former wayside shrine and the only pre-Reformation structure to survive, was declared to be the National Shrine of Our Lady for England.

The readings for Mass on this day are the same as those used on the Solemnity of the Annunciation. As we ponder this blessed encounter between Our Lady and the angel Gabriel, let us give thanks for Mary’s willing and total response to God’s request, and pray that we too will be willing and able to say ‘Yes’ to God in our turn.

If you wish to know more about Our Lady of Walsingham and the shrine, you may be interested in this book: Walsingham: Pilgrims and Pilgrimage, by Michael Rear, pub. Gracewing 2019.

The photograph is of a statue of the Virgin and Child which is in our calefactory.