Members of the Augustinian Order will return to serve at the UK’s Catholic National Shrine and Basilica of Our Lady at Walsingham for the first time in nearly 500 years. Source: Catholic Herald.
Three African friars will assist and serve the increasing numbers of pilgrims coming to what was once one of Europe’s most prominent pilgrimage sites.
The development was announced on Monday and has been described as a “a significant moment in the life and history” of the shrine.
The move represents the first time that members of the religious order that formerly worshipped and served pilgrims at Walsingham have returned, on a permanent basis, since they were forcibly disbanded by Protestant authorities nearly five hundred years ago during the Reformation.
“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,” said Fr Robert Billing, the shrine’s director.
“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.”
The medieval Augustinian priory at Walsingham in Norfolk was once one of the most visited pilgrimage destinations in Europe.
“The famous priory [often known today as “The Abbey”], and famed Marian Shrine, which housed the original replica Holy House of Nazareth, was administered by Augustinian Canons from 1153 to the shrine’s dismantling and the priory’s subsequent destruction in 1538, at the hands of Henry VIII’s commissioners,” the shrine’s administrators note.
The priory buildings were destroyed following the “dissolution”, vandalisation and robbing of the monasteries and Henry VIII’s break with Rome in 1534.
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Augustinian friars return to Walsingham at Catholic National Shrine for first time since Reformation (By Thomas Colsy, Catholic Herald)
