Out of the saints today, I chose Our Lady of Walsingham to remind me to pray for a friend who moved back to Peru. She visited England and went to the Shrine and brought me back a prayer card and cross which I keep on my desk at work. I miss her!
Here is the history of Our Lady of Walsingham. In 1061 Richeldis de Faverches, lady of the manor near the village of Walsingham, Norfolk, England had a vision of Mary. Our Lady asked her to build a replica in Norfolk of the house where she was born, grew up in, and received the Annunciation of the birth of Christ. She did so immediately, building a house 23'6" by 12'10" according to the plan Mary gave her. Its fame slowly spread, and in 1150 a group of Augustinian Canons built a priory next to it. Its fame continued to grow, and for centuries it was a point of pilgrimage for many people throughout Europe.
When King Henry VIII formed the Church of England, all Catholic shrines and places of worship were ordered to be destroyed. In 1538, the Holy House was stripped and the statue of the Virgin Mary was taken to London to be burned, and the other buildings were used as sheds for the next three centuries.
In 1896 Charlotte Boyd purchased the Slipper Chapel (named in honor of those who - in the Middle Ages - removed their shoes to walk barefoot to the Holy House) and donated it to Downside Abbey. In 1897 Pope Leo XIII refounded the ancient shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, and pilgrimages resumed. In 1922, the statue of Our Lady is enshrined which began an era of cooperation at the between Catholics and Anglicans. In 1981 construction began on the Chapel of Reconciliation and in 2000 the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham was reinstated.
"Let all who are in any way distressed or in need seek me there in that small house that you maintain for me at Walsingham. To all that seek me there shall be given succor."
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