no day-glo madonnas

Last week I went for a couple of nights to the Shrine of our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk. It was originally founded in 1061 and during the Middle Ages became a hugely popular place of pilgrimage with several large religious houses springing up around it. When he was purging monasteries Henry VIII destroyed Walsingham and it lay, mostly forgotten, until the earlier part of the 20th Century when a new shrine Church was built just over the road from the site of the original abbey.

There are two Shrines - the one in the village of Little Walsingham belongs to the Anglican Church and about a mile down the road stands the site of the slipper chapel (where pilgrims would have discarded their shoes to walk the last mile barefoot) and the Roman Catholic Shrine.

Back when it all started, a noble woman called Richeldis saw a vision which told her to build a replica of the house where Mary was when she was visited by the angel announcing Jesus birth - so inside the shrine Church is a version of this house as well as a Well which is reputed to have healing properties.

The last time I went to Walsingham was probably twenty years ago - I had first gone when I was 16 and found an extraordinary place. I almost didn't bother going, 2 days in North Norfolk, hardly worth it, I told myself. I was worried that I would turn up, a husband, four children and ordination later and really not find anything worth going for. On the other hand I think I was worried that I might find it just as special and holy as it had been in my previous experience and that God might actually meet me there in a special way - as we all know conversations with God in quiet places are not always comfortable affairs.

I found the latter, a thin place and an odd one. It is hard to put into words what a place where we feel that God peeks in just a little bit more than normal actually feels like. I felt a little guilty, like I was letting the side down, to find such a close experience of God in a place which does not allow women to exercise their priestly office....but the fact is that I did and, I realize, I may never understand that.

There have been a couple of nudging comments about day-glo Madonnas since I returned - I am sure that such things are around somewhere - but I didn't see any, mostly because I was there to spend a couple of days praying not looking for irritations. Perhaps that is part of the lesson here, that God is and we, sometimes, just need to be too, without a lot of complications or presumption.