The ancient abbeys...

...of Suffolk and Norfolk, destroyed under Henry VIII, rang again with the timeless chants of the Mass, as young pilgrims on the 50-mile John Paul II Walk  to Walsingham made their way across the countryside.

It was glorious, beautiful, unforgettable.  We began at Bury St Edmunds - where, long long ago in the reign of King John, the abbots of England's monasteries gathered to pledge themselves to insist on the rights and freedom of the Church, and to draw up what was to become Magna Carta...here, in warm evening sunshine, on the Feast of St Dominic, the Dominican Sisters of St Joseph  had gathered a big crowd for Mass to launch the pilgrimage. We were welcomed by the Chairman of the Town Council, wearing his chain of office, and speaking about the great tradition of Bury St Edmunds, which has been welcoming pilgrims for something like a thousand years.  The wealth of this town was built on its Abbey, and throughout the Middle Ages people thronged here from across the country.

Mass was sung by young Father Henry Whisenant, ordained in Norwich Cathedral just a few weeks previously. We chanted a Missa de Angelis, pilgrims did the Scripture readings, and Sister Hyacinthe, organiser of our pilgrimage, led us in the Psalm. We sang rousing hymns.  The  local parish had turned out in good numbers, and with the young pilgrims filled the old ruins with beautiful music and a great atmosphere of devotion and prayer...Father Henry preached, and a long line of people made its way across the lawn for Holy Communion, the slanting sun and lengthening shadows sheltering the scene, with the distant plop-plop of a game of tennis in the nearby courts and the cries of children playing in the Abbey park...

Then a hearty supper - provided by the excellent Sister Julie of the Dominicans - and a general meeting of all the pilgrims to exchange greetings and be given information and directions for the days ahead. Night Prayer in the church of St Edmund King and  Martyr - the walls are lined with  magnificent framed embroidery worked by young people of the town back in 1970 telling his story -  and then we settled for the night's rest, the men in the church hall and the women in the Catholic primary school next door. It is not particularly comfortable sleeping on a floor, and the mat I had brought, which is meant to have a sort of inflating air-thingummy, never works very well. But we had to be up very early the next day, for Morning Prayer in the church before a ride to Barton, and Mass there, and the start of the long walk to Walsingham...