Victims of Gun Violence - July 1 - July 31

Rest eternal grant unto them,

And let light perpetual shine upon them.

May they rest in peace.

Click here for a link to the list of names of all people killed with a gun from July 1 through July 31.

Pilgrimage - Saint Melangell, Patron Saint of Hares

This particular shrine was completely unexpected. I needed to get from Caernarfon eventually to Nottingham where I was staying with an old friend. So I looked around for pilgrimage sites along the way and stumbled on this place. It turned out to be one of the absolute highlights of the whole pilgrimage. The drive to get there was pretty crazy itself. The route took me all the way through Snowdonia National Park which was absolutely stunning. The weather that day was spectacular which didn't hurt at all.

Pheasants

There were many things that made this stop so memorable. One of them was that I had to make the last part of the journey on foot. As I was driving up from the little village, I actually had to stop the car and pull off the road by a little sheep gate. The road had become impassible. There was a commercial pheasant farm and the road was completely covered in pheasants. They could fly, but they simply refused. After about twenty minutes of driving at pheasant pace, I gave up and parked the car.

So I had to walk about a mile and and half up to the shrine.

Asking prayer from Saint Melangell

Holy Melangell, your love for creation inspired you to protect one of God's most vulnerable creatures; pray that God will grant us the courage to place ourselves between the vulnerable and those who would do them harm.

Collect for Saint Melangell

Holy God, in the beginning, you created the world, blessed it, and called it good; strengthen the heart of your Church that, through the intercession of Holy Melangell, we might work to protect the creation entrusted to us and preserve its goodness for those who will come after us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Pilgrimage - Saint Winifred, Patron of the #MeToo movement?

On the map, it would have made more sense to go to Holywell before St. Asaph's. However, it turned out I was coming through on the day of the opening of the pilgrim season at Holywell, and there was going to be a special mass in the afternoon. Since it's only about 15 minutes away, I decided to head over to St. Asaph's first and come back to Holywell.

This is the only remaining part of the devotion to Saint Winifred. Her shrine ended up in Shrewsbury, about 50 miles away. This shrine was destroyed and desecrated in the Reformation. Today, the Holywell is maintained by the Roman Catholic diocese of Wrexham and Saint Winifred's Church.

On account of her her remarkable story, St. Winifred has, for centuries, been one of the saints invoked against unwanted advances. So she is an ancient saint with a timely role in the Church today.

Asking prayers from St. Winifred

Holy Winifred, pray for us and pray especially for your sisters and all who struggle with unwanted attention and false and degrading expectations; we ask you to pray for your brothers and all who have been taught by the sins of the world to believe that their power and their worth comes from dominating others; we ask you to pray that God will send the Holy Spirit so that true equality and respect will grow among us all.

Collect for St. Winifred

Loving Father of us all, send your holy angels to protect all those who suffer from unwanted advances so that, with the intercession of your daughter Winifred, we my all grow into the fullness of the love you have for all your children. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Pilgrimage - Saint Asaph of Wales

After leaving Mirfield, I headed southwest into Wales. In part, my original motivation was simply that I really wanted to go to Wales. We never found a chance to get over there when we were at the College, and I had a lot more freedom in this trip. One of the places I really wanted to see was Castle Caernarfon, one of the defensive castles built by Edward I. But this really had nothing to do with the pilgrimage except that it meant that I would be spending most of my time in northern Wales. From there I looked around and few a few important pilgrimage sites.

The first I visited was St. Asaph's Cathedral, originally the site of St. Asaph, the principal saint and evangelist of northern Wales. I had a small personal interest in going to St. Asaph's. In my first job after I left my undergraduate studies, I was working for a firm in Bala Cynwyd, PA. Keeping with the Welsh tradition, the local parish was dedicated to St. Asaph. So I was very glad to visit St. Asaph's Cathedral, the smallest cathedral in Britain, and to learn a little more about it's role in the history of the Church in Wales.

Asking prayers from St. Asaph

Holy Asaph, pray for your fellow servants that God may put the words of the Gospel on our lips and that we might proclaim God's love in the communities we call home.

Collect for St. Asaph

Come Holy Spirit who sets our hearts aflame with the fire of love; help us to see the people in our lives who have lost their faith or who have never known your presence, that our faith may be strengthened when we share it with others. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Recorded at the Travelodge in Canterbury.