Anyone who’s ever been to Walsingham on a weekend pilgrimage will know that one of, if not the highlight of the experience, is the candlelit procession round the Shrine grounds on Saturday night. And it is quite something to experience. The church is always packed with several hundred pilgrims for the service, and all of those who are able, join the procession as it wends its
way out of church, through the Shrine gardens, and then back into church again. And if you go to Walsingham at a time of year when it’s dark on Saturday night, the sight of hundreds of people processing round the gardens by candlelight is quite spectacular.
The procession is always accompanied by the singing of The Walsingham Pilgrim Hymn which, through its 38 verses, tells the story of Walsingham from the vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary granted to the Lady Richeldis de Faverches, in the 11th Century, the building of the first Holy House, and its growth into one of the great places of pilgrimage in Medieval England, to its destruction under Henry VIII and eventual rebuilding in the early 20th Century. These days we don’t often get through all 38 verses of the hymn because the procession does seem to have speeded up since low level lighting was installed in the Shrine grounds a few years ago. Before that, there was very little light for the procession, except the pilgrim’s candles. That made the procession more spectacular but, as in those days it was usual for a few pilgrim manuals (the Shrine’s service book) to go up in flames as people got them a little too close to their candles, and to find a fellow pilgrim you’d been walking beside had suddenly disappeared and, as you looked round to see where they were, to find them emerging from behind a tree or trying to extricate themselves from a bush that they’d walked into in the dark, it’s quite understandable why the lighting was put in. Nevertheless, we usually manage to sing a good deal of the hymn, and so we always sing about the building of the first Holy House, and the founding of the first Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. And in doing that we come across a few verses that tie in with our Gospel reading this morning. They go like this;
But though she (Lady Richeldis) had given both timbers and lands,
the power of the work lay in Mary’s own hands.
And this was made clear when the work was complete
by the answers to prayers that poured out at her feet.
And soon mighty wonders by grace were revealed.
for the sick who made use of the waters were healed.
One thing we always have to remember is that, even in Walsingham, we don’t pray to Mary. What we do is ask her intercession, in other words, we ask Mary to help our prayers to the Lord, by asking her to pray to the Lord with us and for us. So the prayers poured out at her feet are still prayers to the Lord. And, as the hymn says, the miracles that occur in answer to prayer are works of grace, and grace comes from the Lord. So although the hymn says that the power of the work lay in Mary’s hands, ultimately, the power of the place and what happens there lies in God’s hands. But although the hymn plays down the part that the Lady Richeldis played in all this, none of it would have happened without her gifts of timber and lands.
Immediately after the verses I’ve just quoted, the Walsingham Pilgrim Hymn goes on to say,
So Walsingham then came a place of great fame
and Our Lady herself was then called by this name.
But those things wouldn’t have happened without the cooperation of Richeldis. Without her gifts of timbers and lands, the Holy House wouldn’t have been built, the Shrine would never have existed, and very few people would ever have heard of Walsingham because the miracles associated with that place wouldn’t have happened there. And this tells us something very important about what we might call the practical side of faith. The Lord can and will and does do miraculous things. But if we want the Lord to do those things for us and through us then we have to meet him part of the way; we have to give him the means, the physical resources to work with and through.
And this is exactly what we see in this morning’s Gospel.
The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle of Jesus that’s recorded in all 4 Gospels and this morning, we heard St John’s account of it. St John tells us that, when he saw the crowds coming towards them, Jesus asked Philip,
“Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”
And we’re told that this is a test, no doubt of what Philip and the disciples would say and do. But in the other Gospels, the test is put more bluntly. In those accounts, the disciples ask Jesus how all these people are going to be fed and Jesus says.
“You give them something to eat.”
All they’ve got is 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish which is nowhere near enough to feed so many people. But they give it to Jesus anyway and in his hands it becomes more than enough, far more than enough, in fact.
This miracle can be seen in different ways. It shows Jesus as he Good Shepherd who cares for his flock. It also shows Jesus as a new and greater Moses who not only leads God’s people in the wilderness, but feeds them too, just as the people of Israel were fed with manna from heaven when they were in the wilderness. It can also be seen as an allegory of the Eucharist because some of the language, Jesus looking up to heaven, blessing and breaking bread, we also find in the account of the Last Supper. But we can also look at this miracle as an example of practical faith. We can put it like this; there’s a problem that needs to be addressed, there’s no doubt Jesus can deal with it, and so we quite rightly bring the problem to him. But what are we going to do to help him? Are we prepared to provide Jesus with the physical means to deal with the problem? Because that is what makes the miraculous possible.
If we think about the miracles of Jesus, always people meet him part of the way. Those who are sick come to him in faith, but they push their way through crowds or are lowered through roofs to get to him. People who are considered ‘unclean’ and unfit to come to him and speak to him, do it anyway. People bring him water and he turns it into wine. And as we heard this morning, he’s given a pitiful amount of food, and in his hands it becomes enough to feed a multitude. And it has to be like that for us too. If we want Jesus to do miraculous things for us, we have to meet him part of the way. We might not think we’re worthy to ask, but we have to do it anyway. We might not think what we can offer is enough or good enough, but we have to offer it anyway. We have to give Jesus the physical means to do his work, and that means making ourselves and what we have available to him so that he can work through these things.
But do we always do this? Isn’t it true that when we’re faced with a problem our response is to either try to deal with it ourselves, if we think we can, and only take it to the Lord if we fail? And if we think we can’t deal with it, to simply leave the whole thing in the Lord’s hands? I’m sure many people think they don’t do these because they always pray about the problems they’re faced with. But how often do pray as a last resort, when we’ve tried and failed to resolve a problem?
And how often do nothing about a problem because we don’t think that we’re capable of dealing with it, that we don’t have the skills or the knowledge or the experience to deal with it? We may very well pray about these things, but we simply leave them in the Lord’s hands because we don’t think that we have anything to offer in terms of a solution.
But that isn’t meeting Jesus part of the way, it’s leaving the whole thing in his hands and expecting, or perhaps simply hoping, that he’ll deal with it for us. But that isn’t what we see either in the Gospels, nor in scripture generally. What we see there are people who work with the Lord by offering him what they have, whatever that might be, and allowing him to work through them and with what they can offer, no matter how little they might think that is.
It’s sad but nonetheless true, that we have problems in life and in the Church. And it’s right that we should take these things to the Lord in prayer and ask his help in dealing with them. But we have to be prepared to cooperate with the Lord in solving these things. Walsingham came a place of great fame through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the grace of the Lord, but it wouldn’t have done without the cooperation of the Lady Richeldis. So like her, we have to meet the Lord part of the way by providing the physical means for him to work with and through. Just as people in the Gospels pushed through crowds and were lowered through roofs to be healed by Jesus, so we have to make the effort to allow him to help us in our difficulties. Just as those who thought they were unworthy came to Jesus to seek his help anyway, so we have to give Jesus the chance to help us by coming to him as we are, no matter how lacking in ability or knowledge or experience we are, or think we are. No matter how little we think we have to offer, we have to offer it anyway because in his hands what we think isn’t enough can become more than enough.
To put it very simply, and in terms of the miraculous works of Jesus we read about in the Gospels, if we want the Lord to provide us with the finest wine, we have to at least give him the water. If we want the Lord to provide us with a feast, we at least have to give him a morsel to work with.
Amen.
Propers for the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Trinity 9) 28th July 2024
Entrance Antiphon
God is in his holy dwelling;
he will give a home to the lonely, he gives power and strength to his people.
The Collect
Almighty Lord and everlasting God,
we beseech you to direct,
sanctify and govern both our hearts and bodies,
in the ways of your laws and the works of your commandments;
that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever,
we may be preserved in body and soul;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)
2 Kings 4:42-44
Psalm 145:10-11, 15-18
Ephesians 4:1-6
John 6:1-15
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
2 Kings 4:42-44
Psalm 145:10-19
Ephesians 3:14-21
John 6:1-21
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 