Catholics celebrate first feast day of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and Wales

The rector of the Walsingham shrine, Father Robert Billing. The feast day of Our Lady of Walsingham was celebrated Sept. 24, 2024, in England and Wales for the first time. / Credit: The Catholic National Shrine and Basilica of Our Lady

Walsingham, England, Sep 24, 2024 / 13:55 pm (CNA).

The feast day of Our Lady of Walsingham was celebrated today for the first time.

In July, the Vatican granted permission for Our Lady of Walsingham to be celebrated as a new feast in the dioceses of England and Wales beginning this year on Sept. 24.

Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, shared his hopes when the feast day was announced that the new feast day would strengthen the faithful.

“May this yearly celebration be a source of renewed grace and evangelical endeavor for the Church in England and Wales, as, imitating Mary, the faithful may ever more become disciples of her Son, receive the message of the Gospel, treasure it in their hearts, and reflect on it in their minds,” he said.

The rector of the Catholic National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, Father Robert Billing, explained the significance of the feast on the 90th anniversary of the restoration of the Catholic shrine at Walsingham.

“The placing of the national feast of Our Lady of Walsingham across England affirms not only the historic importance to Catholics of our national shrine of Our Lady in this the 90th anniversary year of the restoration of the Catholic shrine at Walsingham but also helps cement our plans for the future of the shrine in terms of projected growth, the upgrading of our chapels, and in raising our overall profile,” he said.

“We anticipate that this elevation will further help encourage many more pilgrims to come and stay with us on pilgrimage, particularly for the Jubilee Year in 2025.”

The new feast was celebrated with about 250 of the faithful at the national shrine with a solemn Mass, recitation of the Angelus, and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. It will culminate in vespers, benediction, and a procession to the shrine’s Slipper Chapel.

The feast comes as three young Augustinian friars from Nigeria are due to return to the shrine and Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham in England in October. This is highly significant because after serving the shrine in Walsingham since the 12th century, the Augustinians were forced out as part of King Henry VIII’s policy of the “dissolution of the monasteries” in 1538. 

This will be the first time the Augustinians have returned since then.

In the 12th century, Walsingham was one of the four principal shrines in Christendom alongside Rome, Jerusalem, and Compostella, Spain. Pilgrims flocked to Walsingham in the thousands.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham was established in 1061, according to the text of the “Pynson Ballad,” which says that Our Lady appeared to a devout noblewoman named Richeldis de Faverches and showed her in spirit the House of the Annunciation where the Angel Gabriel greeted Mary in Nazareth and asked her to build a replica in Walsingham as a perpetual memorial of the Annunciation.

As pilgrims flocked to Walsingham, Richeldis’ son had a priory and a church built, run by the Augustinian canons, and the shrine flourished until its destruction by Henry VIII. It was restored in 1834 after Anglican convert Charlotte Boyd bought Walsingham’s disused 14th-century Slipper Chapel, which she donated to the Benedictines of Downside Abbey. They handed it on to the Diocese of Northampton, and on Aug. 19, 1934, Mass was celebrated there, when the chapel was formally consecrated as the National Catholic Shrine to Our Lady.

Billing explained the significance of the Augustinian friars’ imminent arrival. 

“After much hard work behind the scenes and the support of the local bishop, I am delighted that the Nigerian province of the Augustinian order has responded so generously to my request and that three young friars will soon be among us for service at the shrine in Walsingham,” he said.

He continued: “Their arrival, the establishment of a new priory in service of the shrine, and their ministry here not only promises so much for the future mission of the shrine but also pays rich tribute for the Augustinian tradition of canons that faithfully served the shrine from the 12th century until the shrine was tragically dismantled, and the priory destroyed, at the time of the English Reformation.”

In the United States, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham is found at St. Bede Church in Williamsburg, Virginia. It was blessed in 1941. Following a visit to Walsingham in England, Father Thomas Walsh, founding pastor of St. Bede Church, commissioned a statue of Our Lady of Walsingham from Lillian Dagless, who had designed and made most of the furnishings for the Slipper Chapel.