Our Lady's Mirror 1936

Have you made the pilgrimage this year? If so you will agree that it is essential to extend the Church by at least the addition of a few bays of the proposed Nave. Life during the Season at the Shrine is becoming more and more trying to those whose work it is to look after the Sanctuary and manage the pilgrimage and the greatly increased number of other visitors. If some client of Our Lady would make this extension possible before next Spring, he or she – or they – would earn the unbounded gratitude of those who visit the Shrine and those who labour there.

This season will ever be marked in the annals as the year when the first organised Scottish pilgrimage came to Walsingham since the destruction of the original Holy House.

These adventurers, led by Father Joblin of S. Michael’s, Edinburgh, heard Mass and were blessed at 6 o’clock on Saturday, August 22nd and after a hurried breakfast boarded the train for their long journey to East Anglia. Other members of the pilgrimage cam by road. Arrived before the Sanctuary the weary travellers led by a blue-eyed laddie carrying a votive banner, made their first visit. The whole pilgrimage was a most happy event, and already plans are being set on foot for a second Scottish Visit in 1937.

The Repository [shop] in the grounds has proved to be a great improvement and many have commented on the change – of course, it is not a beautiful building – but some day that will be corrected we hope. It has, however, stopped a lot of chatter that used to go on in the Shrine.

How often Priests say “I should like to lead a pilgrimage to Walsingham but the distance is so great”; if any of our readers think that, we should recommend that they write to Fr. Mellor, Christ Church Clergy House, St. Leonard’s-on-Sea, who brought a bus load of people up in one day from that South Coast resort, without unnecessary fatigue, and in real comfort. Where there is the will the way can generally be found.

A candid friend said how he appreciated “The Mirror” but pointed out that there is precious little of it. We agree – but our readers do not seem to realise that that is the fault of themselves for they seldom if ever, provide any copy for our pages.

illustration: Enid Chadwick's drawing of 'lighting-up time' in the Holy House [above]