In 1055 A.D. beside a gently flowing English stream in the green, green countryside of that fair land and near the village of Walsingham the Lady Richeldis had a vision of St. Mary in queenly attire seated upon a throne and holding out the little boy Jesus for all to adore. I think this may be the purest and least corrupted of all the postbiblical accounts of St. Mary's apparitions up until Medjugorje (discussed in Lady Chapel XIII - please be patient) in the 1980's. No special devotions were called for, no astounding doctrines proposed by Rome -- from then until this day water is drunk from the well at Walsingham shrine with many healings occurring from all accounts. Our Lady wanted a house to be built there which would be similar to the one that the Holy Family occupied at Nazareth. The name Laura, my dearest daughter, is related to the House of the Holy Family!
Despite King Henry VIII's destruction of such places during his
political brawl with the equally worldly-wise pope in Rome, it was
restored in fairly modern times, and, sadly, the Anglicans who run the
place seemed more anxious to mimic Roman Catholicism's Medieval Marian
excesses that prevailed before the English Reformation than they were to
reinstitute the profound simplicity of the vision of St. Mary's
reproclamation of "Do whatever He tells you!" Sadly, we Anglicans
seldom appreciate our own rich Reformed Catholicism and its wonderfully
balanced approach to things Marian.
Next Go to Lady Chapel VI