Pilgrimage Walks

Back by popular demand (from Phoebe), we're going on our 4th pilgrimage walk to Hailes Abbey, near Cheltenham, this Sunday, 15 July 2007.

We did this pilgrimage walk before, back on 12 November 2006, but of course it was out of season and Hailes Abbey was closed. Phoebe asked if we could go back when it was open, so that's exactly what we're doing this Sunday.

Anyone is welcome to join us!

Here's a reminder and some further details for you of our pilgrimage walk this Sunday to Buildwas Abbey in Shropshire.

Buildwas Abbey is owned and managed by English Heritage and they say this about it...

"Impressive ruins of a Cistercian abbey, including its unusually unaltered 12th-century church, beautiful vaulted and tile-floored chapter house, and recently re-opened crypt chapel. In a wooded Severn-side setting, not far from the Iron Bridge and Wenlock Priory."

We'll aim to meet at the church in Sheinton, about 2 miles west of Buildwas Abbey. The route of the walk follows part of the Severn Way, going fairly close to the river in parts, and taking us along a disused railway, so it should be pretty easy walking. The walk is about 2 miles long, so we should get to Buildwas in time for lunch.

So, this coming Sunday is our second pilgrimage walk, this time to Hailes Abbey, near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire [Multimap.com map (OS) | Google Maps map]

The plan is to meet at the edge of a Winchcombe, a village a little way from Hailes, at the end of a road called Puck Pit Lane. There's a footpath that runs from there across country directly to the abbey, which looks like it might work well for us in terms of distance and terrain. (Unlike last time, Sarah and I haven't been able to go in advance to scout things out, so we're working from a map to find a promising starting place!)

Well, yesterday we had our first pilgrimage walk. If you've no idea what I'm talking about you might like to read more about what we were up to.

In the end we left the starting point at around 11.30, and it took us about 2 hours to walk to the priory ruins at Much Wenlock. The children all did amazing walking (though some are way too big to be in back packs still!), and we had plenty of stops for prayers and snacks along the way. The journey was beautiful, through cider orchards and woods, over a stream, through several fields and finally through the village of Much Wenlock.

Wenlock Priory was dedicated to St Milburga, the first Abbess of the original Anglo Saxon monastery who was later canonised because she was said to be able to talk with birds. Consequently, the focus of our walk was our place in and as part of nature, divine creation, mother earth. And we used the famous prayer of St Francis of Assisi, the Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, as the liturgical centre of our ceremony in the priory. I've uploaded our version of the Canticle to this page, which you can download at your whim.

This was our essential thought for the walk:

Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society
--Saint Francis