"I was glad when they said unto me - we will go unto the House of the Lord" (Ps 122: 1)
On the last day of May we had our United Benefice pilgrimage to the Shrine of our Lady of Walsingham - we were blessed with glorious weather and a very holy and happy day. I would like to think for a while about shrines and their significance - yesterday and today.
In the Old Testament there is a creative tension between the idea of God being with his Pilgrim People wherever they are and the idea of God being especially present in the Temple at Jerusalem, the Jewish National Shrine. Prophets like Jeremiah warned against the tendency to see the Temple in magical terms - he said it was trust in God, obeying his commandments, which would protect the nation against danger.
In the New Testament we find Jesus in his childhood and as an adult making pilgrimages to Jerusalem. But we also see how critical he became towards the Temple, how it needed to be challenged and restored as "a house of prayer for all the nations", echoing the words of Jeremiah. Jesus cleansed the Temple and spoke of his body being God's Temple or shrine.
Early Christianity was a religion with no temple, no shrines or sanctuaries. In New Testament times the return of Jesus and the end of the world were imminently expected, so there was no point in building churches or shrines. But as time went on it was natural that devotion to the memory of Jesus led to Christians seeking out the places invested with memories of his earthly life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension.
It was natural too for those early Christians to identify places associated with the witness unto death of apostles like St Peter and St Paul. Just as there is a universal instinct to reverence and deal carefully with the burial of the dead - so even more strongly the places of Christian burial of the saints became seen as holy. Belief in the Resurrection meant that these were not sad places, but holy places where the veil between heaven and earth had grown thin - holy places where God was especially present. During the years of persecution under the pagan Roman emperors, when so many Christians were martyred - their places of burial in the catacombs became places of worship with the Eucharist celebrated on altars beneath which the martyrs were buried.
The conversion of the Emperor Constantine in the 4th Century led to much interest in the Holy Land. His saintly mother, our own Helena of Colchester, over 70 years old by then, had been in the habit of going to the shrines of the martyred saints in Rome and she traveled to Jerusalem and the Holy Land to sacred sites associated with Jesus.
By the 7th century, missionaries were actively spreading the Gospel throughout northern Europe, it was normal practice to mark the progress of the Gospel and the achievements of these pioneer evangelists whether martyred or not - by having shrines built over their tombs. By then the shrine of St Alban, martyred in 209, had already been in existence for over 400 years! Pilgrims journeyed to these shrines to worship God and to remember the saint whose shrine they were at. They prayed for healing for themselves and others, gave thanks for blessings received, expressed penitence and experienced a greater sense of belonging to the Church Universal.
Now, many Anglicans and members of the Reformed Churches may find the veneration of the relics of saints rather strange, but we only need to reflect on what happens to the belongings of celebrities like Princess Diana, David Beckham and Elvis Presley in more contemporary times to understand their fascination. The cult of the celebrity, which is so dominate today is usurping the place once occupied by the saints of old.
From the beginning of the Churchís history there was debate about the significance of the relics of the saints and the whole idea of intercessory prayer to God through the help of the saints. Writing in the 4th century St Jerome explained the practice in these words - "We do not worship the saints' relics any more than we do the sun or the moon, the angels, archangels or seraphim. We honour them in honour of He whose faith they witnessed. We honour the Master by means of the servants". From early times healing properties were attributed to relics. Examples of miraculous healings are so numerous that even sceptics must wonder if there is not something in it.
The wide exchange of relics throughout the Middle East, the Mediterranean world and Europe made people, especially those on the fringe of this vast area like people in the British Isles, feel they belonged to the universal family of the Church.
To hurry on from "Shrines Yesterday" to "Shrines Today" we must on the way briefly mention the terrible destruction of our shrines by Henry VIII, who in the 1530s, needing money for his foreign wars, and to reward his supporters, found it very convenient to dissolve all the monasteries, confiscate their lands and despoil the shrines - taking for himself the precious gifts found at the shrines. But that wasn't the end of the story.
Down the ensuing centuries many people still made pilgrimages to the sites of shrines and to the few places, often remote parish churches where shrines had escaped destruction. In the 19th century, when so much was done by the Victorians to restore the cathedrals and churches of this land, in the course of this necessary work - fragments of the destroyed shrines were found and attempts made to show what they had looked like. They were seen as historical curiosities.
Then, in the 20th century, there has been a remarkable blossoming and reawakening - as shrines began to be restored as places of quiet reflection and intercessory prayer. Again the stories of the saints were affirmed, candles were lit and pilgrims and visitors able to experience something of what it must have been like to go to shrines in pre-Reformation times.
I would encourage you to seek out and visit these holy places that have survived the vicissitudes of Reformation and Civil War - places like Durham, St. Albans, Canterbury, Winchester and Chichester. They are liminal places where the veil between heaven and earth is very thin.
The shrine of our Lady of Walsingham, which sparked off these thoughts, is unique with an openness beyond any narrow Anglo-Catholic approach - there is a welcome to all who go there on pilgrimage. What a joy it was to share in the National Pilgrimage in the presence of Rowan, our Archbishop. Later in the year there are special pilgrimages to Walsingham for young people and families. There is also the ecumenical aspect with Roman Catholics visiting the Slipper Chapel and Orthodox Christians going to their own centre as well as to the Anglican shrine.
So, let us not take these shrines for granted but use them as a way of making real our understanding of the whole idea of that creedal statement on belief in "the communion of saints". May our shrines long continue to welcome many pilgrims as they come to pray and to worship.
One final thought - the image of our Lady of Walsingham - is a very powerful one. In it the Blessed Virgin Mary points away from herself towards the Christ Child in her arms - Jesus is the object of all our devotion - His are the footsteps in which the saints tread - to Him be the glory - now and unto the ages of ages.
Every Blessing,
Father David