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Our Lady's Mirror
Winter 1954
The image of the Cure d’Ars in
the Priest Associates Chapel
May we hope that this winter number is not too late to wish our readers a happy and peaceful
New Year.
1953 has been rather a sad time for us at Walsingham and seems to have consisted of a series of
funerals, of old friends and hopes, so we trust fifty-four will be more joyful.
We are, after many years of waiting, adapting the stairs from the lower to the upper sacristy – this latter
has never been used for the purpose it was built owing to the impossible approach – we hope by this
means to have more adequate accommodation, for although the present sacristy is quite large as these
apartments go in our English churches, it is quite inadequate for a pilgrimage church.
Last year we had the main gate to S. Augustine’s built, and since the last Mirror we have been able to
close in the west side of the College quad and put in the gate there. It is amazing what a difference these
two little works make to the sense of enclosure and compactness.
Three hundred and more Priest Associates of the Holy House receive the Mirror of Our Lady four times a
year, as well as hundreds of members of S.O.L.W. This is sent gratis, but each one is asked to send a
donation towards the cost of printing and postage. Some of our readers are very generous and a number
do all they can to help as they say they appreciate this little publication. But, a number do nothing. Now,
if sixty people other than those who already help sent us £1 a year we should be solvent, or if 500
readers were to send us a little over two shillings a year our position would be secure. What do you think
about it?
Then there is another little matter to call your attention to before the pilgrimage season begins again. Do
pilgrims realise that the average offering made to the Shrine at a pilgrimage amounts only 4d. a head,
and that constitutes the main income for the maintenance and running of all the work of the Shrine and
precincts? Arising out of this is the matter of tips. The helpers who wait on the pilgrims at meals spend
long hours in their service and often leave the refectory long after the pilgrims are snug in bed, and are at
it well before they open their sleeping eyes. Yet very few who are waited on remember these of show
their appreciation by a small gratuity. We hate to mention these things, but you know if you stayed a
night or a week in lodgings or a boarding house or an hotel, you would never dream of forgetting the
staff, while often 10 per cent is put on your bill for them We feel it is only a statement of these facts
which is needed to move the organisers of pilgrimages to remember these helpers in the refectory as
substantially as we are given to understand they do the bus drivers.
For fifteen years or more since the ancient foundations of the original Shrine were uncovered at the
building of the extension to the Pilgrimage Church, it has been our intention to protect these footings
which were fast disintegrating through the action of rain and frost. This has now been done through the
generosity of Sir William Milner, and the part of the foundations which are not beneath the Church have
been covered with a cement casing. Unfortunately, it gives an impression of much wider footings that are
actually beneath, but as the covering can be opened out again, if necessary, the extra thickness of the
covering will be a greater protection.
OUR PICTURES [only the second is on this web page]
1. The picture on page 4 is of the chapel of the Scourging under the patronage of SS. Wilfred and
Cuthbert and is the Milner Chantry Chapel. The beautiful altar cross encrusted with amethysts is the gift
of the Community of S. Margaret at Haggerston, while the frontal was presented by the late Mrs Till.
11. On page 9 is shown the end of the little ambulatory looking from the chapel of SS. Wilfred and
Cuthbert towards the image of S. Cure D’Ars which stands on the North wall of the chapel of that saint,
which is that of the Priest Associates of whom there are now about three hundred. This figure came from
Lyons and is a very faithful portrait of the saint.
The chapel on the left is that of SS. Hugh and Patrick, a small portion of the murals showing the life of S.
Patrick, painted by Enid Chadwick, can be seen; while on the right is an iron grill erected in memory of
Father Elton Lury a Guardian of the Shrine.
111. The photograph on page 3 depicts the Ikon of Our Lady of the Gates; otherwise called Portaitissa.
articles: Auceps, 'Ornithological Oddments'; H H-N, 'Charles the Great and Charles the Good'; B H, 'Our
Lady of Egmanton'; Sandys Wason, 'Noel' [poem]; 'St Peter's, Great Walsingham'; 'A Licence to visit
Walsingham [1340]'; Pope Pius XII, 'Prayer for the Marian Year'; Hugh Ross-Williamson, 'The Canon of the
Mass'
photographs: icon of Our Lady of the Gates, chapel of the Scourging, and image of the Cure d'Ars in the
Priest Associates Chapel [above]; Canon Peterson, St James's, Cleveland, USA, Honorary Guardian; three
photographs of the restoration of the College's north wing; alms box in St Peter's, Great Walsingham; Our
Lady of Egmanton