...on Thursday. The abbey at Bury St Edmunds is the place where the abbots of England gathered to plan the drawing up of Magna Carta, the greater charter of our land, which centres on its opening statement "that the Church in England shall be free." The abbey was destroyed under Henry VIII - a man not known for his commitment to the freedom of the Church - and its ruins still stand, surrounded by lovely gardens, in the centre of the town. Mass in such a place, in the open air, the voices of the congregation raised in song as the afternoon sun begins its descent into evening, is simply glorious. Each year, this Mass marks the start of the John Paul II Walking Pilgrimage, which continues through the lanes and meadows of Norfolk and finishes at Walsingham, with the big midday Mass at the barn church at the shrine. The Pilgrimage is organised by the splendid Dominican Sisters of St Joseph, some of the jolliest nuns in England (do click on that site and see the pic of Cream Teas).
Plenty to pray about on the Pilgrimage this year. Peace in the Middle East...help for the exiled Christians of Iraq...an end to the crisis in Ukraine...and we also need to pray for the Church, and for the Synod taking place this Autumn...
I've been sent some panicky comments about this Synod...the media will be trying to spin things in all sorts of ways. But the Synod will conclude with the beatification of the saintly Pope who gave us Humanae Vitae, the courageous re-stating of the Church's message on the transmission of human life and the wrongfulness of contraception. Paul VI came under such horrible attack for that encyclical, and I remember a letter from a faithful priest, writing towards the end of the pontificate: "Pray for the Pope in his gethsemane". The Church cannot and will not change God's plan for marriage, and the transmission of life. Pray that the Synod will be fruitful and useful and a tool in the hands of all who are working for the New Evangelisation...
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