Friday, September 04, 2015

Walsingham 2015: First Day

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Dinner in Ely: Cock-a-leekie soup.
The mobile phone coverage in Norfolk is so poor that that live tweeting of the pilgrimage proved impossible; in this and the next two posts I'll try to make up for that with retrospective posts about each stage.

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High Mass in St Etheldreda's, Ely, celebrated by Fr Michael Rowe, EF Chaplain in Perth, Australia
This was our biggest walking pilgrimage to Walsingham ever, with more than 80 participants. We gathered in Ely last Thursday, having collected about 30 people from Walsingham so they could leave their cars there. We had an excellent dinner provided by our volunteer catering team, and spent the night in Ely. The next morning, at 6:30am, we had a High Mass in St Etheldreda's, followed by breakfast, the pilgrims' blessing, a visit to Ely Cathedral, and a long walk to Stoke Ferry, our objective for the day.



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Fr John Cahill, our Chaplain, giving us the Blessing of Pilgrims (from the Roman Ritual).

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'By the Grace of God I am what I am.' Bishop Ware, a defender of the validity of Henry VIII's
marriage to Catherine of Aragon, built himself a stunning Chantry in his Cathedral, in happier times.

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The column of pilgrims shortly after our lunch stop.

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A meat-free but sustaining dinner in Stoke Ferry, our second camping place.
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