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ATHER Alfred Hope Patten may well be turning in his grave a few hundred yards distant. Not because of the state of the world, nor even because of the state of the Church, although, God knows, it would give him good cause, but because he was of that age and generation of Anglo-Catholic priests to whom the cult of personality was anathema. They were not motivated by worldly ambition or by ecclesiastical preferment: they did not see the Church as a career but as a vocation. There were certainly eccentrics and vivid characters, some magnificently absurd, but it was an eccentricity that was always at the service of God and of the Church.[1]
Father Hope Patten’s personality remains tantalisingly elusive: austere, disciplined, single-minded, driven, devoted to his parish and to his people; highly-strung, prone to nervous debility and exhaustion. He expended much energy in a series of attempts to establish a communal, quasi-monastic community, but was drawn to solitude. He needed to withdraw from the pressures of communal living and from parish life from time to time. Strikingly lacking in formal education, he occasionally showed an academic inferiority complex and prickly defensiveness. He was respected, loved, revered even. He was immensely persuasive and resourceful, harnessing the energies and talents of many to engage on his great task. These contradictions, complexities, angularities of his personality make him more human, allow a glimpse behind the glacial mask that looks out so uneasily from many photographs: there is one set of photographs, however, that is positively jaunty and hints at something generally hidden and concealed behind a severe public façade. However true these conclusions are, they pale into insignificance and would be dismissed by Father Hope Patten. Despite his reluctance to employ the Latin tongue, he might be moved to say from beyond the grave “si monumentum requires, circumspicere.”[2] For here is the fruit of his vision: here is his legacy: here he restored Our Lady to Walsingham.
His vision of the restoration of devotion to Our Lady is only marginally less significant than the vision of the Lady Richeldis in 1061. It was in that original vision that Our Lady appeared and marked out this small Norfolk village, by God’s initiative, as a holy place. So touched by God was it, that Walsingham did not cease to be a holy place, a place marked out, during the despoliation of a King thirsting for treasure, nor during the protestant aberration of the 16th century, nor during the puritan usurpation, nor during the latitudinarianism of the eighteenth century with only that “thin stream of pilgrims.” Touched by God, this holy ground waited patiently to be re-discovered and recovered by a re-awakened people. It was Father Hope Patten’s singular gift to perceive that and to act upon it.
His creation, or, rather, his imaginative re-creation remains central to an expression of the Catholic Faith in the Church of England. Even if his vision was elaborated by a romantic view of the Middle Ages, by a medieval, chivalric whimsicality that sees the Guardians decked out like bargain-basement[3] Knights and Ladies of the Garter, it, nevertheless, continues to evoke our devotion and to command our loyalty. Walsingham is one of the glories of the Catholic Revival in the Church, a Church it has enriched. Of course, this Shrine Church divides opinion: it exhausts the meaning of Jacob’s words, “How dreadful is this place.”[4] If, however, Ninian Comper is right and “the atmosphere of a church should be such as to hush the thoughtless voice,”[5] then it is achieved day after day in this place as we enter “the House of God and the Gate of Heaven.”[6] Comper also says that to enter a church “is to leave all strife, all disputes of the manner of Church government and doctrine outside,”[7] but that is a less achieved aim and will remain so while there are two Shrines in Walsingham. Yet while that painful and scandalous division continues, this Shrine can be a beacon to unity because at its heart is the Incarnation of God in Christ Jesus, the unity of the Godhead is to be mirrored in the unity of the Church, and its ministry is of reconciliation and healing.
The reading from the apocalyptic vision of S. John, which we heard earlier, is one of the most potently emblematic and symbolic of texts. This woman of the Apocalypse brought so vividly and imaginatively before us can represent at once Mary, the Mother of the ruler of all nations, the kings of kings and lord of lords; and also the Mother of the seed which kept the commandments of God and the testimony of Christ, the Church, the Body of Christ her Son. That same figure can symbolise and represent both at once. This compelling and dramatic image, “ a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery,”[8] demonstrates the intimacy of the relationship between Our Lady and the Church. Devotion to Our Lady must mean for us commitment to unity however much the Church of England seeks to rend Christ’s seamless robe even again and even more.
That unity between Christ and his Mother is visible in the Incarnation, the mystery of God’s love at the centre of this Shrine’s work and witness; visible in suffering the slights and pains of the Nativity; visible in the ministry of service and intercession at the miracle of Cana in Galilee; visible in the unity of the Agony and Passion, our salvation and redemption, as the nails pierced his hands and feet and the spear pierced his side, and a sword pierced her own heart as she cradled her Son once again and wept piteous tears. The unity of Christ and his Mother is visible at the Resurrection, in the upper room at Pentecost, and in the glory of heaven. The unity of Christ and his Mother makes unity imperative for us, even if we did not have Christ’s own words in the great high-priestly prayer which was read as the Gospel this morning: (I use a more resonant translation) “that they may all be one; even as thou, Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us … I in them and them in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.”[9] Yet as we pray Jesus’ high-priestly prayer for unity, we legislate for disunity in terms which become flagrantly offensive, “effective and definitive obstacles.”[10]
In his letter inviting me to preach this sermon commemorating Father Hope Patten, the Administrator, with that close attention to detail and accuracy for which he is well-known, asked me to link it to the 150th Anniversary of the Assize Sermon which effectively launched the Oxford Movement. Well, it was on 14 July 1833, 175 years ago, when John Keble preached that sermon, but if we take 7 July 2008 as the terminus ad quem, the Oxford Movement did not quite make it and lasted 174 years 358 days.
Let me say just a word about Father Philip. He has been a notable servant of Our Lady’s Shrine: his pastoral care, his sermons, his fund-raising exploits, his total self-giving have been in every way outstanding. North London has gained a fine priest. I understand that the Administrator is also leaving.
For the Catholic Movement, 175 years after its inception, the “winter stretches, where all vision is lost and all memory dies out,”[11] as it faces its greatest and possibly its final threat. The Oxford Movement, whose genesis was the assertion that the Church is a divine society, unswayed and uncontaminated by a secular polity, has fallen victim to the Church of England’s genuflection to the world, so much so that one preposterous and fatuous member of General Synod could say that “our national church, the church by law established, is … now in step with most of the country and what people feel.”[12] It is as if the Oxford Movement never happened.
“All our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.”[13]
Perhaps the great mistake Anglo-Catholics made was to settle for toleration rather than to pursue conversion, to accept an honoured place in a broad and accommodating church. It seems we are no longer honoured and are no longer to be tolerated. The sanctuary lamps are going out throughout the Church of England. Father Hope Patten fought for the Catholic Faith here with very little spirit of compromise. That great litany of Tooth, Cox, Enraght, Dale, Green, spurned compromise or trimming for the sake of conscience. Father Mackonochie memorably proclaimed, “No desertion: no surrender.”
There is no point, however, merely clinging to the wreckage of a once glorious past. We cannot see that heritage degenerate into Protestantism in fancy dress. Liberal Protestantism is a dead end. As the irredentist Administrator once said, “Protestantism is a staging post on the road to atheism.” That will not bring men and women to Christ. That will not further Christ’s cause of unity. Unity is a greater prize, the mercy of God is a higher aspiration than the present concerns with episcopal power and a partial and contentious understanding of justice. The state has already surrendered to that liberalism in religion that John Henry Newman identified, “the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another … It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion as true … all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste, not an objective fact … it is the right of each individual to make it say what strokes his fancy.”[14] The Church of England is on the same track. If you seek proof of Newman’s words, read the debate in General Synod on 7 July 2008. Thankfully, it is not the General Synod that is infallible.
The Catholic Movement cannot be allowed to fade away a mere 175 years after John Keble’s sermon: our history does not permit it; our consciences cannot allow it. From the Oxford Movement came the fullness of the sacramental economy with at its centre the presence of Christ in the Mass; the urgent call to the holiness of living; the integrity of the Church as a divine society, as a sacrament witnessing to a morally wayward society; the engagement of the fullness of human imagination and all our senses in the worship of God in the beauty of holiness; the creative and ordered discipline of the Christian life; the incarnational demand of transforming the moral lives and the material conditions of the impoverished; the sanctification of the world; the understanding of the order and faith of the Church as part of the mystery of God’s self-giving in his revelation in Christ Jesus; the recovery of “the apostolic tradition maintained by the Church since the first millennium”[15] of the undivided Church; the priority of responding to Christ’s prayer for the unity of his Church and of his people. That is a faith and a creed worth preserving and worth fighting for, even at the last. It is not something we can surrender. Can you imagine Father Hope Patten, for the repose of whose soul we plead this Mass, surrendering?
The trumpet call that is sounding is not yet the Last Post for the Oxford Movement, rather it is a call to obedience to the Catholic Faith and to Catholic Order; a call for a new Oxford Movement in our own day, a new articulation of those effective and definitive riches which lie at the heart of our tradition; and it is a note of defiance to those who seek to deny it and seek to turf us out.
“Forth to the mighty conflict
In this his glorious day
Ye that are men now serve him
Against unnumbered foes;
Let courage rise with danger,
And strength to strength oppose.”[16]
[1] An insight of Fr Barry Orford, in conversation. Gratias
[2] Words used by Sir Christopher Wren about S. Paul’s Cathedral when asked for his epitaph.
[3] The Principal of Pusey House, and Guardian of the Shrine, suggested this alternative to my original “cut-price”
[4] Genesis 28: 17
[5] J. N. Comper, Of the Atmosphere of a Church London, Sheldon Press [1947] p. 8
[6] Genesis 28: 17
[7] Op cit Comper p. 9
[8] Revelation/Apocalypse 12: 1
[9] S. John 17: 21, 23
[10] Cardinal Walter Kapser in an address to the Lambeth Conference 2008
[11] D. H. Lawrence writing about England in a letter to Lady Cynthia Asquith, November 1915. Quoted in A. N. Wilson, After the Victorians: The world our parents knew London, Arrow Books [2006] p. 128
[12] Robert Key MP (Conservative) for Salisbury who is striving to maintain the reputation of the Conservatives as the stupid party. BBC web-site.
[13] Rudyard Kipling, Recessional
[14] John Henry Newman in the Biglietto Speech 1879
[15] Cardinal Kaspar in a statement from the Vatican following the vote in General Synod on 7 July 2008.
[16] EH 581: NEH 453
A sermon preached on the feast of the Assumption 2008 at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham by The Revd Dr Robin Ward, Principal of St Stephen's House, Oxford.
I have bad news for the shrine of our Lady of Walsingham. It would seem that our pilgrimage to this holy place is soon to be superseded, and that England’s Nazareth will once more sink into torpor and obscurity. Why so? Will a new tyrant arise to overthrow the cult? Will the demise of the Church of England make it redundant? Will the departure of Fathers North and Barnes in fact require a lengthy convalescence from the effects of the ministry of the bouncy castle? No. The real threat to our shrine, according to the learned and erudite Professor Haldane of St Andrew’s University is space travel. Once we get rockets which are big enough and speedy enough we will have no need to mess about coming on pilgrimage to Marian shrines, stopping for fish and chips in Fakenham and so forth, because we will be able to go and see Mary herself in person. After all, if she has been assumed body and soul into heaven, moved that is from one place to another in an extraordinary way, but still in a way which preserves the essential continuity of her existence, then really the only difficulty (though that a rather daunting one from a strictly practical point of view) is knowing where to look for her.
The Christian message of salvation would in many ways be much easier to explain if we did away with the resurrection of the body. Survival after death, future happiness and sufficient continuity with this life to assure recognition of loved ones: these are the staple expectations of the English which all the parish clergy recognize from countless funeral visits and insipid crematorium tributes. The Bishop of Durham is quite right to point out how un-Christian these expectations are, even if by doing so he chooses to identify himself with the error of Pope John XXII, denying that the blessed enjoy the beatific vision before the Last Judgement. But he is right to suspect the spiritualizing as old as Plato and as persistent as Gnosticism, whereby the body is explained away: no need for any of those embarrassing questions about the whereabouts of heaven or indeed the fierceness of the fires of hell, if we let go of the tangible and project salvation into a purely spiritual and therefore conveniently inconceivable realm.
This is not the faith of the Catholic Church. The great monastic theologian Anscar Vonier wrote: The resurrection of our bodies is the acid test of our orthodoxy; no man is truly Christian in his intellect unless he firmly believes that in the world to come mankind will be, not a multitude of ghosts, however glorious, but a race of distinct personalities, composed of body and soul as here on earth. My soul is not me: without my body I may possess by God’s good grace the sight of His face which is the reward of the blessed and the Beatific Vision promised the saints, and possess it in that degree of intensity which reflects the measure of grace to which I have attained in this life; but I will not possess it to the fullest extent until I enjoy it having received back my body in the resurrection. Dante expresses this yearning of the blessed thus: The lustre which already swathes us round/Shall be outlustred by the flesh, which long/ Day after day now moulders underground.
The scriptures could not be more explicit about the bodily character of the glory which is promised to the blessed in the resurrection life: on the mountain of the Transfiguration, Jesus is glorified with Moses and Elijah, both of whom have been assumed bodily into heaven at the end of their earthly lives; at the very moment that the sacrifice of the Cross is consummated by the death of the Lord, the first-fruits of the redemption are made known by the rising of the saints in Jerusalem, a resurrection not made known to witnesses until after his own. And despite Professor Haldane and his rockets, the notion of heaven as a place (which naturally follows when you need to find space for a body) is not strange to theology: S. Thomas inherits from the monastic fathers of the Church the term Empyrean to mean heaven conceived in this way. He argues that because God intended the material universe to possess a two-fold glory, both spiritual and bodily, he begins the creation with the perfect spiritual beatitude of the angels, and the perfect bodily glory of the Empyrean, luminous, unchanging and beyond our observation because it is subject to neither motion nor sight. It is to this place that the Lord ascends to prepare the mansions of the blessed in the Father’s house, and in this place that the Mother of God perpetuates the particular ministry entrusted her in consequence of the singular privilege of her Assumption body and soul into glory.
For Our Lady’s Assumption is not simply an anticipation of the resurrection of the dead which God has decreed for all at the final Judgement. Her Assumption is a consequence of her particular dignity as the Mother of God. Human death comprises of three aspects: one that is natural, the dissolution of material substance in that inevitable decomposition of contraries which is the lot of created things; one that is unnatural, the separation of the soul which possesses immortality from the body which does not; and one which is punitive, the consequence of the Fall. Our Lady although conceived without Original Sin and so exempt by God’s grace from the penal aspect of human death, was not exempt from the natural end of human life, nor the sundering of soul from body which is the dissolution of the human person. She is not in this way superior to her divine Son, who for our sake willingly submitted Himself to a redeeming death on the Cross. But her death is truly as the Christians of the East call it a Dormition: a passing over into Eternal Life which is untouched by the traumatic separation of body and soul which the children of Adam are sentenced to bear, and which exemplifies the dignity of her divine and virginal Motherhood by which she truly co-operated in the work of our Redemption.
When the scriptures talk to us about the resurrection life they draw attention in a rather curious way to clothing: Elijah, as he goes up to heaven in his fiery chariot, lets fall his cloak as a commission to Elisha; the Lord’s garments are transfigured with Him and shine white as light upon the mount of Tabor; the woman of Revelation appears in heaven clothed with the sun. The Pauline teaching for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ seems to take on a tangible form. This clothing is the outward sign of that inward infusion of spiritual insight which enables the created mind to see God and which the theologians call the Light of Glory. For Mary our Mother, the people of God have found profound comfort in the image of her protecting veil, which is at once the token of her bodily glory, the Queen clothed in gold of Ophir, and the pledge of her continuing intercession for all her devout children, whom her divine Son wills should come to salvation through the mediation of her Immaculate Heart. May our blessed Lady assumed into heaven pray for us in this place dedicated to her name and patronage, and for all who come seeking her intercession in trouble and in joy, that we may come at last to the heavenly kingdom of her Son, and enjoy for ever with her the vision of God in the resurrection life.
A sermon preached at Mass on Saturday 20th September, 2008 at the parish church of S. Mary, Horden by The Rt Revd David Hope, former Archbishop of York.
“I am the handmaid of the Lord,” said Mary; “let what you have said be done to me.” (Luke: 1.38)
One of the most remarkable things about Walsingham is the homeliness of its holiness. On the one hand, not too dissimilar from the numerous other Norfolk villages – yet on the other, a place distinctive, special, and unique – England’s Nazareth.
It is in fact a reflection – a living icon of our Blessed Lady herself. Here was a young peasant girl – just like all those others in and around Nazareth – yet one who through the overshadowing of the power of the Most High, became the mother of the world’s Saviour – now celebrated in the well-known lines of the hymn writer – “O higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim, thou bearer of the eternal word, most gracious, magnify the Lord, Alleluia!”
Today we have not had to make that journey to Walsingham – “Why on earth could not God have put down the Holy House in some altogether more accessible and convenient place – rather than that seemingly endless trek down the A17”– I sometimes hear modern pilgrims ask. Well, today Walsingham has come to us and to these northern parts where devotion to Our Lady has been an evident feature of Christian faith and life and devotion from earliest times.
The narrative of St Luke’s Gospel which we have just heard in our Gospel reading this morning – so familiar, yet so profound, is the account of Mary’s “Yes” to God. Not a response either forced or cajoled, but rather a response made freely, gladly, willingly and generously – “I am the handmaid of the Lord . . . let what you have said be done to me” – a response so vital and crucial to the saving work of God among us in Jesus Christ.
It was that response which began in Mary herself a journey in faith and of faith – a journey which led her from the outhouse of an inn in Bethlehem – to the foot of the cross outside the city walls – a journey of supreme confidence in God and yet a journey of risk, uncertainty and unknowing – such is the paradox of our Christian believing and discipleship – and such too is the paradox of Walsingham – the homeliness of its holiness.
“I am the handmaid of the Lord” said Mary, “let what you have said be done to me.”
The readiness of Mary’s “Yes” to God must also become the pattern of the church’s response to God in this and every age. Mary, the future of the church – mother of all Christians, sets before us today the clear call to holiness of life – the Church to live and be the Gospel.
At the very heart of the Catholic revival in the nineteenth century there was the recovery of the centrality of this Eucharistic celebration with the desire for the worship of God in the beauty of holiness which hopefully might lead also to that holiness of life and living which is so characteristic of the Christian vocation and calling in every age.
But then the whole point of the centrality of the Eucharist is that it should be just that – at the very heart and centre of all that we are and do – that it should become a whole way of life, drawing ourselves and our lives more fully and completely into that self-offering of Jesus Christ made once for all on Calvary’s tree so that we might be the more effective witnesses and instruments in that mission entrusted to us to make disciples and announce the Kingdom.
Moreover this worshipping of God in the beauty of holiness was itself to flow out and beyond – that mystery and wonder of God’s love given so abundantly for us here in this Holy Sacrament – lived out in our own lives in the myriad circumstances and situations in which we find ourselves day by day in the service of God and neighbour, It is nothing less than the embrace of God’s love for us and for the whole human family – that embrace of acceptance and welcome which is so characteristic of Walsingham itself.
And yes – I mean the whole human family – young and old, people with different backgrounds, traditions, cultures, experiences – even differing faith traditions – some of great and enduring faith, some whose faith is hesitant and unsure, some of no faith at all – and not least all those who on a wet and rainy day find their way to Walsingham and stumble somehow across the Shrine and there discover, perhaps for the very first time, something of the knowledge and love of God for them, which gives them fresh hope about themselves and the world – purpose and meaning to their loves – a truly converting experience – the grace of the incarnate Word at work in Walsingham. And so it should similarly be in all our churches.
It would be so easy in these days of controversy either simply to skulk back into our respective comfort zones or to devote all our energies exclusively to the issues of the day, however important these may be. However, Walsingham itself should never become either a sort of cosy refuge – a cave of Addullam in difficult and divisive times; nor should it become an exclusive club only for card carrying Catholics in the Church of England. That is not what Walsingham is either for, or about. Rather, Walsingham stands and will continue so to do as a clear witness to the message and mission of the Incarnation of God’s love and care for all in Jesus Christ – quite irrespective of views on the ordination of women to the episcopate or gay priests and bishops or any other controversial and divisive matter.
Yes of course, Walsingham stands clearly and proudly in the Catholic tradition and rightly so – and let me just say that I don’t want any ‘protection’ clauses from the Synod or anyone else, thank you very much – frankly I find that demeaning and patronising in the extreme – to enable me to continue as a loyal and faithful member of the church of my birth and in which I have been privileged to minister.
What I want is a ready and generous acceptance and celebration of all that which I and so many others hold dear and which we have been taught and learned in this church which claims to be part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church down the ages and throughout the world – and in the current situation, that can only be secured by provisions which are clear and unequivocal in their intention both to provide the distancing which I believe to be necessary, as well as being able still to hold us all together in those bonds of communion and love and unity which are the gift of the Spirit – that communion, love and unity which continues to be an imperative for all Christians.
After all, the wonderful thing about Walsingham is that like our eternal home, it welcomes us with open arms. It makes no judgments about us as persons; it asks no questions about what we believe – whether we happen to be ‘sound’ on this or that matter. Rather, Walsingham receives us just as we are. It extends its hospitality to all and for all – inclusive rather than exclusive – for reconciliation, healing and renewal, and in so doing seeks to draw each and everyone of us altogether more deeply and closely into the grace and mercy and love of God , who in and through Mary’s “Yes”, is given to us in Jesus Christ.
Today then, in the joy of the same Jesus Christ risen and glorified, we give thanks for all that Walsingham has been and continues to be for us and for so many the world over – for those who in the very earliest days and in the face of much scorn, derision and opposition re-established the Shrine – and as well, for those who over the years have supported its prayer and its life, its welcome and witness with such great generosity and faithfulness.
No – we cannot, and we never can, continue this work in and of our own strength. So it is that today, as we offer these holy and sacred mysteries, we make our prayer together with the whole company of heaven – the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs and most especially, Mary, the Mother of God, Our Lady of Walsingham, that like her and all those who now in glory shine, we may this and every day ourselves respond with a ready, generous and willing “Yes” to God – so that many others may yet come to find in Jesus Christ, born of the blessed Mary, that He is also the way, the truth and the life for them, and for the world.
(Leader comment - 2nd June, 2006)
This year's National Pilgrimage to Walsingham, nearly coinciding with the feast of the Visitation, recalls another visitation - a former Bishop of Norwich's to the Parish Church when the Revd (Alfred) Hope Patten was the vicar. The story is told in Colin Stephenson's Walsingham Way (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1970). The Bishop averted his eyes from a shrine in the church; "but Hope pulled at his coat tails so that he stepped back into a box of votive candles, scattering them in all directions. This placed him at a disadvantage and Hope was able to say: ' You must see this because it is a reproduction of the image which stood in Walsingham from 1061 to 1538.' The bishop was not impressed. 'Do you teach your people to worship the virgin, Mr Patten?' he asked. 'Only in the sense that they worship their earthly mothers' was the reply, which only drew a grunt from the bishop as he made his escape from the Lady Chapel before it could be suspected that he was making any devotions there."
In contrast, Bishop Pollock's successor, in full pontificals, took part in the great services and outdoor procession on Monday, as the Archbishop of Canterbury did two years ago, Over the past 75 years, since the translation of the image from the Parish Church to the reconstructed Holy House in the new Anglican Shrine, "Walsingham" has become, and remains, mainstream in the Church of England to a degree unimaginable in 1931, when it was thought advisable to move the Shrine to private property. It betokens the extent to which Anglicans have, in respect of the Blessed Virgin at least, reconnected with the religious experience of the greater part of the historic Church. The Shrine, though still (as pilgrims at the National know well) disapproved of in some quarters, has quietly discovered a gift, in its everyday ministry to visitors and school parties, for drawing in those who may not yet consciously be pilgrims. Its warm relations with the RC Shrine (and now with Nettuno in Italy) suggest that spiritual bridge-building is the more effective embodied in physical facts.
It is an anniversary year at the Norfolk Shrine, with special celebrations to come. But it has often been remarked by visitors recently, during testing times for all who call themselves Catholic in the C of E, that, despite all the history, it is not a backward-looking place. Its far-flung friends respond gladly to its appeals (one is on the go now) because they love a house devoted to prayer, actually and often prayed in, and so arranged as to enable even hesitant visitors almost to stumble into joining in. England's "Nazareth" will not convince all sceptics. But those who take a pride in being neither eccentric nor exotic can be given pause by the tremendous development of Fr Patten's revival of the vision of an England where the Mother of Jesus invites everyone to be at home with her Son.
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The Archive Room at the
Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham is contained within the College.
Here is kept a wide range of important documents and material from
the last 80 years. These include complete sets of The Walsingham
Review and its predecessors (including the early Mirror),
photographs, documents relating to the Master of the College and the
Guardians, Priests Associate and The Society of Our Lady of
Walsingham, recordings and videos.
The archives were professionally organised and catalogued in the
1980’s. The present archivist is currently working on
expanding and developing the range of material – including sound and
video records. As the archive is developed, appeals will be made for
material – to fill in gaps and for help with identification,
particularly with photographs.
The archive is not open to the general public but the archivist
is happy to deal with inquiries. More information can be found in
the Walsingham Archives pages (see below), including an outline catalogue, lists
and dates of Masters and Guardians of the Shrine, dates of the
various Shrine buildings.