Monday 10th November 2014
The John Paul Walkers - young people from across Britain who make a walking pilgrimage every year to Walsingham - were at the Church of the Most Precious Blood, Borough, recently - a parish in the care of the Ordinariate - for their annual Reunion Walk. The group was established in 2005 and is led by the Dominican Sisters of St Joseph, from Hampshire.
After joining the parish for the 11 am Mass, they walked along the Thames to Westminster, crossing the river and returning via the Tower of London, and finishing with Benediction and Tea at Precious Blood. The walkers carried a replica of the statue from the shrine at Ludzmiercz, Poland which had been given to the Catholic writer and broadcaster, Joanna Bogle - a member of the John Paul Walkers, who worships at Precious Blood - when she was making a television feature recently in Poland.
Joanna Bogle says: "The Ludzmiercz shrine statue has an extraordinary story. In the 1960s, the statue was crowned by Cardinal Wyzinski, Poland's primate, in a ceremony attended by some 20,000 people. As the crowning finished, the golden sceptre fell from Mary's hand and sailed through the air - and was dramatically caught by the Archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtila: when he later became Pope, everyone recalled the incident and it gave the shrine a new significance".
The replica statue was blessed by Fr Christopher Pearson, the parish priest at the Most Precious Blood at the end of Mass during the John Paul Walkers' visit, before being carried along the Thames. It will now be kept at Precious Blood Church and carried on all the John Paul Walkers' pilgrimages.
The John Paul Walkers will mark their 10th anniversary in 2015 and Ordinariate members are invited to join them: their walk starts on 6 August and finishes at Walsingham on Sunday 9 August. The picture shows them on this year's walk to Walsingham in August.
