Dear Friends,

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This month we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham. Many of you will remember the joy we all felt when it was announced that the Ordinariate was dedicated to Our Lady of Walsingham. Pilgrimage to Walsingham and devotion to Our Lady under that title has played a major role in our lives both as Anglicans and as Catholics; it has been a place of fun and laughter and also of happiness and tears as we have followed in the footsteps of countless pilgrims down the ages, bringing the complexities of our lives to the Mother of God. Indeed I am convinced that the Ordinariate is the answer to so many prayers offered at the shrine.

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When we go to Walsingham, ours eyes are confronted with ruins. The abbey and surrounding buildings were destroyed on the orders of Henry VIII and those who refused to abandon Papal authority were executed. As the pilgrim hymn states “this land which had once been Our Lady’s own dower; had its church now enslaved by a secular power”. The hymn tells of the years of darkness and the silent pilgrimages of the few; but then the hymn becomes more triumphalist, telling of the restoration of the shrine and there establishment of pilgrimages – but those last verses miss an important point, a verse which was never written but without which the story is not correct “ this land which had once been Our Lady’s own dower, has a church STILL enslaved by a secular power”. For many of us this has been our story and our understanding: no amount of restoration could remove the stark fact that we were still separated from the See of Peter: a scandal and a deficiency that had to be healed.

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The Ordinariate puts this right: it acknowledges our history even whilst in separation, it values that patrimony whereby we were nurtured in the Catholic Faith. At the same time, the Ordinariate heals the schism. That which was lost at the reformation becomes possible again and we are privileged to live to see this day, to enter into an ecclesial life for which so many of our forebears prayed.The Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is the answer to so many prayers offered at her feet and we can be confident that our future lies in so many more prayers to be left at the same feet.May Our Lady of Walsingham pray for us and for the conversion of England.

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In Christ,

+ David

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