Photo by Stephanie Kalber (copyright)

A pilgrimage even to Walsingham always takes off slowly in the mind. I was wondering whether to go to confession and didn’t really have the energy. Sitting in the rebuilt church of St Mary’s, an acceptance slowly came to me. I went and talked about my inability to accept things as they are and my place in it. The priest was kind. He said something which made a deep impression on me. “Man is measured not by what he can be but by what he is.”

In other words we should accept that. Yesterday indeed is history tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift. But we have to ask ourselves what do we really want. I was thinking of this that night in the pilgrims’ hostel.

I don’t really want to “do God’s will”. I find that trite, but I do want to find God. The emphasis being on the word “find”. I don’t yet with all my belief believe in a transcendent God and therefore the most important thing to do is to find him. It might happen tomorrow or it may happen as I lie dying but that is the most important thing. And then we can concentrate on what is the most important “ambition”. All the other disappointments fall into place. They are merely busy byways along the main road.

We think we come to a place like Walsingham by accident but such perceptions and insights are vouchsafed to us in a place like this that perhaps Our Lady did really appear to Lady Richeldis in 1081. Certainly Richeldis believed so; and in a very real sense we feel her here.

As we lighted our candles and processed home down the quiet high street and said our night prayers in the garden, a deep happiness and peace descended on all of us. I went to bed and the others went to the pub!