OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM (SEPT. 24TH)

 

A Romanesque Icon of Our Lady of Walsingham

Edited by Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

Happy Feast Day of Our Lady of Walsingham! May you be blessed and protected, held at the prayers of the Holy Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary today and always! 

Our Lady of Walsingham is a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary venerated by English Christians associated with the Marian apparitions to Richeldis de Faverches, a pious English noblewoman, in 1061 in the village of Walsingham in Norfolk, England. Lady Richeldis had a structure built named "The Holy House" in Walsingham which later became a shrine and place of pilgrimage.

According to the tradition, in a Marian apparition to Lady Richeldis, the Blessed Virgin Mary fetched Richeldis’ soul from England to Nazareth during a religious ecstasy to show the house where the Holy Family once lived and in which the Annunciation of Archangel Gabriel occurred. Richeldis was given the task of building a replica house in her village, in England. The building came to be known as the "Holy House", and later became both a shrine and a focus of pilgrimage to Walsingham. 

COLLECT

Almighty Father, whose holy Son Jesus Christ was born of a pure and Sinless Virgin, grant that like as we do pray once more for the renewal and conversion of England, so may she whose dowry England is, provide her intercession with thy son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen

(Text edited from Wikipedia and the Breviary)