Posted on 09/22/2004 8:47:46 AM PDT by Pyro7480
During the first full week of September, I visited England. I flew over there the night of September 3, and I arrived at Heathrow Airport on the morning of the 4th. The purpose of my visit was twofold: to visit a good friend of mine who got married on August 20, and to visit go on pilgrimage to Walsingham, England.
Walsingham was one of the major places of pilgrimage for Catholics in medieval times. Thousands of devout pilgrims traveled there after the Virgin Mary appeared there to a widow in 1061. A "Holy House," based on the house of the Holy Family in Nazareth, was built there, since the widow was asked by Mary to build such a structure. Two major religious orders - the Augustinians and the Franciscans - built communities nearby. Most of the kings of England before the English Reformation visited there at one time or another. When Henry VIII created the Church of England, Walsingham was destroyed by the authorities. Through the following centuries, the remaining Catholics still went there on pilgrimage secretly, until the 19th century, when greater religious freedom in England allowed them to come back to Walsingham permanently.
From Saturday the 4th until Monday the 6th, I stayed in London. On Sunday, I visited Brompton Oratory, which is in the Kensington area of London. It was built in the 19th century, under the direction of Father Frederic Faber and his community of Oratorians. It is a really beautiful church, built in the Italian Renaissance style. The Oratory has a regular Sunday Tridentine Mass, which is usually held in the "Little Oratory," which is on the grounds of the Brompton Oratory. However, it is currently under renovation, so they held the Traditional Latin Mass in the main church. The Oratory is such a wonderful setting for this Mass. The Oratorians also offer the Novus Ordo, but they do it in a very reverent fashion (they offer it ad orientem, among other things).
Here are a few pictures that I took in Brompton Oratory. The first is of the priest and the altar boys during the Tridentine Mass.
The second picture is of the nave of the Oratory. This was taken during the morning, so not that much sunlight was entering the interior. 
The third picture is from the side oratory dedicated to the Martyrs of England. Above the altar, on the left side is St. Thomas More; on the right is St. John Fisher; and in the middle is the gallows of Tyburn, where many Catholics died for the faith. 
The fourth is from one of the many side chapels dedicated to Our Lady. This particular chapel is dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel, and also features the Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 
Later that Sunday, I went to Tyburn Convent, which is across the street from Hyde Park, and a short walk from where the Tyburn "Tree" stood. A community of Benedictine nuns live there, and they maintain a crypt-level shrine to the martyrs of Tyburn. There are many relics of these martyrs there. The altar of the crypt is very beautiful, and incorporates a wooden structure that looks like the gallows that stood at Tyburn. 
I boarded a train to King's Lynn, which is an hour away from Walsingham, on the evening of September 6th. The journey took two hours, and by the time I arrived in King's Lynn, it was already night. I had to take a taxi cab to get to the bed and breakfast that I was going to be staying at. The following morning, another taxi arrived to pick me up, and I was dropped off at a bus stop. This, however, was the wrong bus stop to get to my destination. When I realized this, I feared that I wouldn't get there in time for the noontime Mass. The next bus to my connection arrived an hour later, and it took about 45 minutes to get to Fakenham, where I would board another bus to Walsingham. When I finally arrived at the Catholic Shrine of Walsingham, which is actually a mile down the road from where Holy House stood, I made it just in time to hear the priest make the Sign of the Cross!
Mass was held in a modern chapel, built in 1981. I wasn’t too fond of its construction, though it contains two beautiful pieces of religious art. Also, I would have preferred that they offered the Tridentine Mass, but that wasn't going to happen. After Mass, I stayed for a couple of hours and walked around the grounds of the Shrine. The oldest building there is called the “Slipper Chapel.” Dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria, it originally served as chapel for traveling pilgrims, before they reached Walsingham. It survived the English Reformation, but it was used for many other purposes, other than Catholic Mass. It was restored in the early 20th century.
Here are a few pictures from the inside of the Slipper Chapel.
The sanctuary of the Slipper Chapel has a beautiful altar, which has a reredo that features the Crucifixion in the center, St. Catherine of Alexandria on the left, and St. Lawrence on the right. To the left of the altar is a wonderful statue of Our Lady of Walsingham, which was recreated from a seal that survived the English Reformation. 
Here's a closer shot of the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham. 
The exterior of the Slipper Chapel: 
When I was finished exploring the grounds, I walked to the village of Little Walsingham. Since the Shrine is some distance from the village, it took me almost a half hour to get there, but I enjoyed the walk. The whole area is very scenic, with rolling terrain, green fields, forests, and farms, so even though the walk was a bit tiring, it was well worth the effort. I ate a "traditional" English meal of fish and chips there, and walked around a bit.
I returned to the Shrine on the 8th, which is the feast day of Our Lady's Nativity. It is also the anniversary of the rededication of the Slipper Chapel, which took place in 1938. I went to the noontime Mass, which was well-attended. I got there early, and while I waited in the chapel, there were only older people at first. About 15 minutes before Mass, several buses pulled into parking lot, and hundreds of Catholic school children crowded into the nave. It was so wonderful to see them! They were mostly girls of grade school age, dressed in a very classy uniform, with blazers and straw hats!
Before I left Walsingham that day, I got to tour the grounds where the Augustinian priory and the Holy House stood. All that remains of the priory church is a large arch that held the east window of the church. 
I am grateful that I got the opportunity to see these wonderful sites of our Catholic heritage. I hope to return there someday, and spend more time there.
Glad to see I wasn't off base.
Thanks for the ping ELS.
Excellent post Pyro - it almost makes me feel homesick!
Did you catch the name of the priest offering Mass? I can't tell from the picture who it is for certain - could be Fr. Ignatius Harrison.
You will have to let me know next time you're over - we could meet up at the "O".
Some trivia for you re Fr. Faber:
When they disinterred his body to bring it back for burial at the Oratory, the coffin was completely empty apart from his patent leather shoes!!!
"I think we talked about that before, and came to the conclusion that it was a Solemn Novus Ordo Mass. They usually don't have Solemn High TLM's there."
Correct - the main Sunday morning Mass is the Latin Novus Ordo. However because of the orientation, Gregorian chant, lack of sign of peace etc. many think they have stumbled into a Tridentine Mass.
(In fact you may find that the Canon used was from the 1962 Missal, but as it would have been sotto voce who would know???)
I don't remember who offered Mass, but I did hear Fr. Harrison lead Solemn Vespers on the Feast of Our Lady's Nativity on the 8th, via a BBC radio broadcast. The Oratory choir was absolutely beautiful, as always!
Wonderful! Thank you for sharing your trip with us.
Wow. Was the crypt damp?
(I'm really not being irreverent - at least not on purpose. I studied archaeology in college . . . and even in damp conditions there's usually a "shadow stain" at the least - even after thousands of years.)
"No dust or bones?"
Not a sausage, apparently!
"Wow. Was the crypt damp?"
Haven't a clue. And the priest who told me about it could venture no hypothesis at all.
Maybe Fr. Faber wasn't particularly turned on by relics and didn't want to take the chance?
;)
He was found about ten minutes later in a nearby bush. He was NOT injured seriously, much to everyone's surprise. He filed a workmen's compensation claim later, for which nobody blamed him much . . . :-D
Could be a statement about relics, for sure (do the shoes count as second-class relics? ;-) )
In August of 2000 I was in Italy, and a family friend took me an my Mother to a Jubilee Celebratory Mass in Sulmona, which is the home of Ovid, IIRC. The town predates Christ by quite a few years and has a feel that is indescribable. The road to Sulmona is triumphal flanked on each side with those strange sort of Pine trees which are enormouly tall, but have no vegetation except at the very top.
Anyway, the Mass was a High Mass offered in Latin with a full array of Altar Boys and Priests of all ages. It was unbelievably beautiful, moving and reverent.
As you might have noticed, the altar in the church in Texas is based on the altar in the Slipper Chapel.
Yes, Granda of Spain copied it for them. The statue of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston came from the Slipper Chapel as well. It was the copy used when the Statue of Our Lady of Walsingham blessed by the Holy Father had to be removed from the Slipper Chapel for repairs.
Look closely at the picture of the Houston shrine-church: the window on the right is of Our Lady, holding a miniature of the holy house, appearing to Richeldis. Son Geoffry is depicted as a grown man behind her, holding the St George banner indicating that he became a crusader.
The Houston Church has a lady chapel the exact dimensions of the original holy house. On the tabernacle door there is a bas-relief of the Holy Family in Joseph's carpenter shop. The walls of the holy house shrine is built to the height of the house of Loretto, and the steep roof is supported by rough oak hammer-beams. The tiny chapel is wonderfully "home-like".
Upon reflection, it is as if God the Father established that parish as a summary and a crown of every apparition of the Blessed Virgin. Does that make sense to you?
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