Pictures of the Day: Prayers from Walsingham

I finally fulfilled a decades long wish this past week, and made my pilgrimage to venerate Our Lady of Walsingham, in Northumberland, England. This is England's national Marian shrine, and one of my favorite icons of Our Blessed Mother. Here's a photo essay therefrom, with succinct comment:

The English Countryside

Not the best shot of the village, but just somebit to give a notion of how quaint..

The Anglicans have taken over the middle of the village, which is very quaint, in that high English tradition of quaintness:

The 20th Century Era Anglican Shrine

The Anglican Shrine's Icon

1st candle

Aide a l'Eglise en Detresse has a storefront there..

My Pasture, Minus the Stallion I Slept With..

This is where I pitched my bivy while there. There was a big horse that they let into it after dark, which concerned me briefly, but we ended up getting along swimmingly, and I slept like a stone.. 

Walked Out Past Great Snoring.  

The restored chapel (burnt by the prots in the 16th Century, rebuilt by a Catholic convert in 1897) is a good mile outside the village center.  I walked out there and back again twice.

Slipper Chapel, The 11th Century Catholic Shrine

Garden Behind the Shrine

2nd candle

Room for Votive Candles

3rd candle

These next two I took with my iphone, because I didn't want rudely to disturb the silence with a shutter click:

The Shrine Chapel

The Statue of Our Lady of Walsingham

Pilgrims at Adoration

And Finally, the Obligatory Self-Portrait.

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