Every country in which the Catholic Faith has been planted has its holy places. In the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary, reported in the <em>Pynson Ballad</em> – the earliest written source on the shrine of Walsingham – a holy place is one in which “All that me seke there shall fynde socoure” (all that seek me there shall find succour).
Just as God is pleased to honour a saint by granting favours asked in the saint’s name, so He is pleased to honour a saint by granting favours asked in a place associated with the saint, particularly if getting to this place came at a cost. And God is never more pleased than when favours are asked in the name, and in a holy place of, the Blessed Virgin.
It is not in vain, therefore, that Catholics from all over England, and beyond it, travel to our oldest great shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham in Norfolk.
The best way of getting there, naturally, is on foot, and this has been recognised by our predecessors in the Faith for so long that walking pilgrims find their way into the modern village sign posts within the area, while some of their ancient routes are carved into modern maps.
To make the most of it, spiritually, we should pray as we walk, interspersing sung Rosaries with hymns and chants, from <em>Salve Mater Misericordiae </em>to <em>Onward Christian Soldiers.</em> We need the liturgy as well, it goes without saying.
We should do it with others, too, as a great collective offering to God. Perhaps with around 200 people or so?
And that is just what the Latin Mass Society did on the August Bank Holiday weekend just gone, when we walked 56 miles from Ely to Walsingham.
But because this is never enough distance for some hardy souls, for the last three years an intrepid group has joined us in Ely having already walked the 19 miles from Cambridge.
And this year, an even more intrepid group joined them in Cambridge having spent the preceding four days walking a ridiculous distance from St Bede’s Clapham Park in South London.
But then we are not asking for a trifle: as well as many private intentions, we are seeking nothing less than the conversion of England.<br><br>Both in terms of intention and logistics, we were looking at a pretty serious undertaking. Hence a volunteer team of twenty-plus people, with some to bring water to rest-stops and others to make us an evening meal; a fleet of support vehicles, a kitchen in a trailer; several priests, suitcases full of vestments, candlesticks and other liturgical paraphernalia; first aiders and altar servers; someone sorting out portable loos and someone else with an electricity generator.
With all that going on, we decided we might as well add into the mix someone with the responsibility for taking photos for social media, as well as a videographer with a drone.
And that, give or take, was the Latin Mass Society’s Walking Pilgrimage to Walsingham for 2024.
But – it was also about much more: How much do we want our compatriots to return to the Faith? How much do we want our culture and our political institutions to be cleansed of error, ugliness and cruelty?
The measure of our goal’s importance is the sacrifice we are prepared to make for it.
Walking pilgrimages are, in general, and as the LMS Walsingham Pilgrimage proved, huge fun – but it is not the fun of self-indulgence. It is the fun of self-sacrifice, of mutual support, of the satisfaction of enduring discomfort, of finding fellowship in shared suffering, of making a great effort for something worthwhile.
Everything worth having requires hard work; everything we value is won at a cost. To say that the cost was amply rewarded is not to deny reality of the cost, or the fact that only those strongly motivated to seek the reward are prepared to set aside immediate satisfactions to achieve it.
For example, this year the LMS cooking team gave pilgrims a treat: bacon sandwiches on Sunday morning. We could all have sat at home that weekend and eaten bacon sandwiches all day long, but they wouldn’t have tasted like the ones we ate after walking nearly 40 miles over two days, to ready us for the final push to the Shrine.
The revival of walking pilgrimages since the 1980s is one of the unexpected success stories of the Church.
Numbers receiving the official Camino certificate from the <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/pilgrimage-standoff-assisi-or-santiago-de-compostela-its-a-tough-call/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela</mark></a> dipped alarmingly in the 1970s, but have only increased steadily since then.
The traditional walking pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres has increased by leaps and bounds, and included a record 20,000 pilgrims this year.
<em><strong>RELATED: <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/on-the-road-to-chartres-the-annual-pentecost-pilgrimage-has-lessons-for-the-wider-church/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">On the road to Chartres: the annual Pentecost pilgrimage has lessons for the wider Church</mark></a></strong></em>
Walking pilgrimages associated with the Traditional Mass have sprung up in the US, Spain, Scotland and elsewhere.
It is a form of spirituality specially suited to the young, including those young men so noticeably absent from typical parish congregations.
It is also a spirituality of sacrifice, not a concession to the modern world but a <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/going-on-pilgrimage-feels-like-an-act-of-rebellion-against-secular-modern-society-and-its-on-the-rise-in-britain/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">sign of contradiction</mark></a>.
To paraphrase St Paul, it is a little like the training of an athlete, but we do not exert ourselves for a wreath that will fade:
“We do it for one that will last forever” (1 Cor 9:25).
<strong><em>RELATED: <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/latin-is-fruitful-not-just-for-catholics-but-for-civilisation-too/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Why all the fuss about Latin? Because it is fruitful not just for Catholics but for civilisation too</mark></a></em></strong>
<em>Photo: The Latin Mass Society’s Walking Pilgrimage 2024 on route to Walsingham. (Photo by Tremain Renee Newman-Brown.)</em>
<em>Dr Joseph Shaw is Chairman of the Latin Mass Society (<a href="https://t.co/IW7Q6gqTDJ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">https://lms.org.uk</mark></a>), President of Una Voce International (<a href="https://t.co/LAaYY4RNuV" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">http://fiuv.org</mark></a>), and a public philosopher and freelance writer.</em>
