Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

SHRINES OF OUR LADY. 35H
was to our forefathers that perennial source of joy
foretold by the prophet,1 hence their childlike love
for the instrument of the Incarnation, whom they
were wont to call " our Lady St. Mary". The feast
of the Conception of our Lady is said to have been
first celebrated in 1122 at the Benedictine Abbey of
St. Peter at Gloucester.- Glastonbury, the mother
of all churches in England, had honoured her spot-
less virginity from the beginning of the Christian era.
Her shrines and sanctuaries, founded either on some
legend expressive of the popular mind in her regard,
or in thanksgiving for graces received, covered the
land. Amongst many other towns Tewkesbury,
Canterbury, Worcester, Lincoln, and Evesham were
places of resort most dear to our Lady's clients. In
or near London, our Lady of Barking, our Lady of
"Willesden, our Lady of Graces, and our Lady of the
Pew or Pue were much frequented shrines. No place,
however, was so celebrated as Walsingham. Its
priory was founded between 1146 and 1174, and
dedicated to our Lady's Annunciation. Austin
"/
Canons were in possession of it from its early days,
but how it became a pilgrimage is not known.
During the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
our kings, with few exceptions, visited the
shrine, and their acts of piety towards our Lady of
Walsingham are recorded up to the great apostasy.3
2" Haorietis acjiias in gaudio de fontibus Salvatoris," Isains.
-H'£&. Petri Glouccstri . \>. 15.
Bi-i»Lrett, Our L'niiis Down/, p. 3ur>
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