Our Lady of Walsingham

In 1061, a noblewoman named Richeldis de Faverches had a vision. Mary appeared to her three times and showed her the house in Nazareth where the Angel Gabriel had announced the Incarnation to her. Mary asked Richeldis to build a replica of that house in Walsingham, a small village in Norfolk, England. Richeldis said yes. The result was a shrine that became one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in all of medieval Europe, drawing kings, peasants, and everyone in between.

For nearly five centuries, Walsingham was England's Nazareth. People walked barefoot the last mile to the shrine, leaving their shoes at a place still called the Slipper Chapel. Henry VIII himself made the pilgrimage, at least before he decided the Church was an obstacle rather than a home. In 1538, he had the shrine destroyed during the dissolution of the monasteries. The statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was burned in London. Pilgrimage stopped. The site fell quiet.

But not forever. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the shrine was restored, both Anglican and Catholic versions. The Slipper Chapel became a Catholic national shrine in 1934. Pilgrims returned. They still come today, walking that same last mile, leaving behind whatever they're carrying.

Our Lady of Walsingham is a reminder that Mary always points to the Incarnation: God becoming flesh, entering a real house, in a real town, through a real woman's yes. Walsingham exists because someone paid attention to that yes and decided to build something that would help others do the same.