Our time at Walsingham began proper with sung Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit for our pilgrimage group. To strains of the St Julian’s hymn and invoking the Spirit to come down as a Refining Fire, Fr David challenged us ‘what do we see?’, and by extension what do others see of Christ in us.

Fr David took us around the two Orthodox churches here in Walsingham, an experience with echoes of our worship back home where iconography takes such a key role in our spirituality.

And then to the evening’s Healing and Reconciliation liturgy, foreshadowed by our earlier Mass. The theme of this year’s Walsingham season is ‘Mary, Star of Hope’. We were reminded of Mary’s trust in God’s plan for her as we seek to bear our own challenges in life; and how the unique mark of the Christian faith is the promise – the Hope – that in Christ all will be well.