"But love is a durable fire
In the mind ever burning;
Never sick, never dead, never cold,
From itself never turning." …from a ballad about Our Lady of Walsingham
I go there, to Walsingham, in my mind; you are there with me, walking slowly in your shoes. I have the wheelchair ready just in case you can’t make it more than the forty or so steps you can usually do. You do not know where you are, I have brought you down this road in hopes you will awake, for I stepped into your dreams and I am trying to bring you out. Yours isn't the senility of age, but of darkness. You walk along, slowly, bowed by the many weights of your brokenness, the fear of pain, the carrying of those deeper wounds of the heart: the anger, the loss. The rain is falling but you do not feel it, my friend, heart of my heart. I can’t even speak of it, only to tell you gently that you might feel wet, and a little cold.
Will my Lady warm you? Will you feel her radiant, humble love? Will you see the tiny house, will you know that she has the Lord of the Universe in her lap who will look at you again, at His Mother’s request? She is who will, with her prayers and yours, renew your flesh and your mind. May I be the doormat that allows you to shuffle over and into the Holy House, for I have no more power to heal your hordish suffering than the pebbles we crunch on the road.
I come to Walsingham, in my mind, as it was before the first licks of fire touched the vulnerable wood of the statue and the house, before the gold and Henry’s father’s gifts were taken back by the lesser royalty of later years; before the ancient Priory was chimera-ed into a forlorn, vacant, eyeless, tombstone. I come, seeking that Lady who lives in the little house at Nazareth. I come seeking a woman who had the greatest grace of all: to say "Fiat" to the greatest suffering and the greatest love ever known by humankind, who gave her womb, her womanhood, her dreams, her pain, to God. I come to be present, with you, my friend, to that "Fiat".
As we walk, and you talk about moving on with your life and your plans, not really feeling the drops settling like tears on your middle-aged cheeks, I no longer feel the pebbles and the rain, but rather the fine dust and the heat of a Galilean sunset. I cross over the river in Walsingham, but I see the ancient city wall of Nazareth, traveling the same route as the English river. Up the road, the same road circling under the city and meeting the same main road. You are now riding in the wheelchair, talking about eating more protein and perhaps some fish. I weep anew as I observe your hunched back, the lines etched out from the edges of your eyes by pain’s razor. We turn right, and I see the same main artery of humble human and animal traffic in double vision: one in the blues and browns muted by the desert, the other in the bright blues and browns of a rainy climate. As we travel up through the middle of town, you remark that it seems noisy today and you’d like some quiet. I smile and say, “Why don’t we go in here?” The wheelchair bumps and rocks a bit on the well-used path to the Holy House, and you wince. I put my hand on your shoulder. I look into your eyes, and I say, “I’m so sorry to see you suffer. I love you”. You look at me. I hold your head to my side and you say, with that intensity of yours, “Forever.”
I brought you to Nazareth, to the English Nazareth, because it would be more familiar to your Western eyes, even though you may not be able to see it at all- except, perhaps, in your heart at the end of your life. I brought you to see Our Lady, in the place where she said we would receive her help. I have nothing of my own to give that isn’t tarnished, or cheapened by bad use. But I can bring you to Nazareth, to Walsingham, in the power of love. And I hope you will see its beauty, Our Lady's beauty: for the closer beauty is to truth, the less subjective it is: and the gentle maiden of Nazareth holds Truth on her lap.
As we enter, me clumsy with the wheelchair to the point that you try walking again, as we enter the Holy House, you think you are entering someone’s cute little cottage. But you aren’t. What is inside that House is bigger than everything outside it, as the red lamp testifies.
O gracious Lady glory of Jerusalem
Cypress of Sion and joy of Israel
Rose of Jericho and star of Bethlehem
O glorious Lady our asking not repel
In mercy all women ever thou dost excel
Therefore blessed Lady grant thou thy great grace
To all that thee devoutly visit in this place. Amen.
Richard Pynson, from theBallad of Walsingham
Post Script: When Richeldis de Favereches was about to build the Holy House, she asked for a sign to show her where to start construction. In the morning, there were two dry spots amid the dew-covered ground, each exactly the dimensions of the Nazarene house Richeldis had seen in her dream. She picked one of the spots, but the builders could get nowhere. Richeldis then went back to prayer, for aid, and the next morning the Holy House was standing, finished on the other dry spot. This showed two things: Our Lady’s call to have recourse to prayer in each and every need, and the significance of the geography of the town in relation to Nazareth and the original Holy House of the Annunciation. If one looks carefully at the maps of each town, there are striking similarities. Walsingham is indeed a story in three dimensions.
