Marian pilgrimage - Our Lady of Allingtree

The Pilgrimage now ranges further west to the valley of the Wye and to the chapel of Our Lady of Allingtree on the road westwards from Hereford towards the Welsh border, and close to site of the nineteenth century Benedictine foundation of Belmont Abbey.

Little appears to be known of this wayside - and gallows-side - shrine, but I have tried to draw what there is together in my previous posts which can be accessed through the one from last year at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Allingtree

May Our Lady of Allingtree pray for Pope Leo XIV

The return journey from Belmont

This morning we packed up and left Belmont after breakfast to make our return to Oxford. I gather that we as the Brothers from the Oratory had managed to impress the monks at Belmont by our assiduity in attending the Offices in church. I think we all wish to return at some time or anothe rto the peace and dignity of the abbey and its community.

Belmont Abbey church from the south east

Image: Wikimedia/geograph.org.uk

Our first stop was in Hereford. Our time there was spent mainly in and around the cathedral, with Fr Jerome checking that all was well with the fine array of monumental brasses the cathedral still posseses despite the depredations of time, destruction and neglect. On ehe poined out to me is the  brass of a Dean from just before the reformation which has two represntations of the Holy Trinity - one being the standard late medieval enthroned father holding the Crucifix with the Holy Spirit hovering and the other, unique in his enormous experience of brass iconography, is the Orthodox equivalent, the Three Angels in the Hospitality of Abraham.

We also went into the Catholic church of St Francis Xavier, which is close by and holds the relic of St John Kemble I posted about in conecction with our pilgrimage to his grave.

 The interior of St Francis Xavier Hereford

The relic of St John Kemble is at the altar on the right

Image: Flickr

I have visited the church before and it is beautifully appointed and cared for. It is in the care of the monks of belmont, one of whom occupies the Presbytery anmd is Pariah Priest

After a bit of shopping in the open market  we set off, past the remains of the Hereford Blackfriars and the unique survival of the Preaching Cross from their graveyard. This is not far from the site of St John Kemble's martyrdom. We did not stop at the Blackfriars and the following notes and illustrations are taken from an online source:

One of Hereford’s hidden gems is the Black Friars Rose Garden hidden down a passageway in Widemarsh Street.  The garden contains the remains of the friary of the Black Friars, once one of the city’s most important religious houses.  The Black Friars were given the site outside Widemarsh Gate in around 1246 and the monastic buildings were consecrated in around 1276.  The Black Friars were also known as ‘Friars Preachers’ and regularly gave sermons to the local populace from their preaching crosses.  The cross in the grounds is one of the few surviving examples in England and was considerably restored in the 19th century.

In 1538 the Friary was dissolved by Henry VIII and the buildings were converted into a fine town house by Sir Thomas Coningby of Hampton Court near Dinmore.  This was badly damaged during the Civil War and later became a farm building.  The existing ruins are the Refectory and the Prior’s House dating from about 1322.

In the 13th century the roadside site was occupied by a house of the Knight’s Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, and parts of the hall and chapel dating from this period are now incorporated into the almshouses built by Sir Thomas Coningsby in 1614.  Grouped around a quiet quadrangle, the twelve separate lodgings were formerly used to accommodate a chaplain and eleven retired soldiers, seamen or servants who were known as ‘The Coningsby Servilors’.

The preaching cross and monastic ruins are now set in an attractive rose garden

Text and images;shawsseasonalliving.

We called in at a pub for lunch, before our final stop at the church at Stanford Bishop near Bromyard.

 Stanford Bishop church

Image: Birmingham Post

This is an intriguing place and raises all manner of historical and archaeological questions. The parish is a scattered community and the church stands by itself on a low eminence. Dedicated to St James it  is not mentioned in Domesday Book, and the present, rather plain structure is mid- to late-twelfth century, when the cult of St James was at its height. There is more about work of that period at St James, Stanford Bishop, Herefordshire · The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture

However what we had come to see is claimed to be much older - the chair of St Augustine, in which he sat - and continued to sit rather than rise - at his fateful and futile meeting with the British bishops in 603.

 

The reputed Chair of St Augustine

Image: catexpert.co.uk

The story of the chair can be read in an article from the Birmingham Post from 2014 at The battle over a chair once thought to be the oldest in Britain, and from which I quote "The earliest claim for its importance was made in the 1840s. Some years afterwards, the chair was discovered in the church tower, when a restoration of the church was taking place, probably in the 1890s. Later on it was turfed out, and served the church sexton as a piece of garden furniture. Later still (in 1899), when it was recognised that the chair might be of major importance, the church authorities presented it to the Beaney Institute or Royal Museum in Canterbury"

In 1943 it was returned to the church and scholarly opinion at the time thought it might be no earlier than eighteenth century in date.  

This is clearly an ancient site.  There is a prehistoric standing stone by the gate into the churchyard and within an ancient yew - there is more about these at  Stanford Bishop Church Stone Standing Stone (Menhir) It may have once been the site of circle, or perhaps a place of assembly. It lies close to the county boundary with Worcestershirewhich is essesntially the same as that between the seventh century sub-Kingdoms of the Hwicce ( represented by Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and part at lease of Oxfordshire - Hwicce as in Wychwood ) and the Magonsaeten ( the medieval diocese of Hereford ). If the ill-fated meeting did not take place at Aust on the banks of the Bristol Channel, as is usually claimed, could it have taken place ata  recognised place of meeting near the borders of two tribal units? looking around from the slightly raised site occupied by the church it is a tempting hypothesis. Time to get the a dendrochronologists to work I suspect.

We travelled back across Worcestershire - a subtly different landscape from that of Herefordshire - and had time to look slightly wistfully as we drove past at the remains of Pershore Abbey in the middle of that attractive town, but had not the time to stop. Pershore was Benedictine, and today just the choir, south transept and central tower of the monastic church survive:

Pershore Abbey from the south east

Image: Wikimedia

 Pershore Abbey from the south west

Image:pershoreabbey.org.uk

Then we continued our journey ascending Broadway Hill with its panoramic view of the county and on home across the edge of the Cotswolds to the Oratory and Oxford - and the chance to collect my mobile phone which has been in for repair, of which I have been physically and emotionally bereft.

This has been a wonderful break both spiritually and recreationally and I am immensely grateful to all who made it possible, Fr Jerome, the community at Belmont, my fellow Brothers and others besides.

Pilgrimage to the grave of St John Kemble

Today we continued our retreat at Belmont with the Offices and High Mass, an excellent lunch in the refrectory and then went off in the drizzle on pilgrimage to the grave of St John Kemble, who was martyred in 1679 at Hereford, in the churchyard at Welsh Newton, a few miles to the south west of Hereford.

 Fr Jerome and the Brothers on the Retreat in Welsh Newton churchyard

Image: Oxford Oratory 

Fr Jerome had planned to take us there but we found that as tomorrow is the feast day of St John we could join in the annual walking pilgrimage to his grave which took place this afternoon.

There is an online account of St John and his life and martyrdom at John Kemble (martyr) and there is an article about him from the Catholic Herald from 2010 at The English martyr hanged at the age of 80.There is another account of him from the Herefordshire past website at Saint John Kemble – Martyr.

One of the Saint's hands is held as a relic in the church of St Francis Xavier in Hereford, and there is an account of what looks very much like a miracle wrought at his intercession in 1995 through the use of the relic at St. John Kemble's Severed Hand

A quiet Saturday at Belmont

Today was our first full day at Belmont, and given over to our Retreat. We all turned up for Matins at 6.30 this morning and followed the monastic regime through the day.

Belmont Abbey church from the north

Image: Jason Pacey Photography 

Fr Jerome is giving his retreat addresses on the links between the Days of Creation, the Ages of the World and the Virtues.

For these we meet in a book lined room adjacent to the abbey church and its Holy Door, but otherwise read or walk as we wish in the buildings or grounds.

I have been reading John Cassian's Monastic Institutes - which consists of two parts, On the Training of a Monk and The Eight Deadly Sins  - and which was translated by Fr Jerome and published in a very attractive edition by the Saint Austin Press in 1999.

 

Grace before a meal in the refectory at Belmont 

Image:benedictines.org.uk 

Going on retreat at Belmont Abbey

Earlier today I travelled from Oxford over to the Benedictine abbey at Belmont on the western edge of Hereford for what is planned as a combined retreat and pilgrimage holiday. This has been arranged for the Brothers of the Secular Oratory of the Oxford Oratory by our Prefect, Fr Jerome Bertram C.O.

The journey across the Cotswolds and then through the lush countryside of Herefordshire was a relaxation in itself and the car I was travelling in managed to arrive just in time for Vespers in the Abbey church despite the potential perila and pitfalls of undertaking ajourney at Friday teatime.

We are staying within the monastic enclosure and taking our meals with the monks so as to follows their horarium. Vespers this evening was my first opportunity to actually attend a service in the monastic church as on my previous stays at Belmont that was out of action due to a major renovation and refit.

Our rooms are quietr and restful, and well appointed and I look forward to the chance to rest and re-create here. I hope the others enjoy their visit - Belmont was my suggestion and apart from Fr Jerome, who came here for his own retreat earlier in the year, none of the others have visited the abbey before.

Belmont Abbey

Image:Belmont Abbey

The Skenfrith Cope

Regular readers know that I have a more than passing interest in historic vestments and I was recently alerted by the newly updated Belmont Abbey website to the existence at the nearby medieval church of St Bridget at Skenfrith in Monmouthshire of a late medieval cope. This rare survival has recently been restored and the Abbot and some of the community at Belmont had been to the service of thanksgiving in the church.

Quite how it survived the reformation era and the ensuing centuries of neglect is unclear but by the 1840s it was serving as the cover for the Communion Table in the church, when it was recognised for what it is.

The Skenfrith Cope

Image:friendsofstbridgetskenfrith.co.uk

The Skenfrith Cope is a fine example of English embroidery of the second half of the fifteenth century. The different parts of the pattern were first worked in coloured silks and silver gilt threads on canvas, and afterwards applied to the velvet.

In the centre of the cope is the Virgin Mary, borne aloft by three angels. On either side is a Seraph, and another is represented below. The rest of the cope is covered with floral devices; the fleur-de-lis, the pomegranate and the double headed eagle. On the hood is a seated figure of the Virgin holding the infant Saviour. The Orphreys (ornamental borders), are embroidered with standing figures of the Saints, under canopies. Next to the hood, on the right hand side, is the figure of St. Andrew - the other figures are too worn to be identified with certainty.

As the Abbot pointed out in his sermon, which is on the Abbey website, red is not the colour usually associated with Our Lady. Today one would expect white or blue, but in the middle ages the emphasis was on the splendour rather than the colour, so this was doubtless the most splendid fabric the parish could get with which to honour the Virgin. 

The cope is noteworthy as an example of what a small rural parish in the marches of Wales could expect to have in its possession - this is not a major urban parish church but in a village. This is, so to speak, Voices of Morebath territory.

The parish website has a piece about the cope which can be seen here. 

The Abbot of Belmont on Benedictine Liturgy

The speaker today about Benedictine Spirituality at St Giles church in Oxford was the Abbot of Belmont, the Rt Rev Paul Stonham OSB. As I have stayed at Belmont I was particularly interested to hear him and his thoughts on liturgy and prayer in the Benedictine tradition.

His emphasis was on the cohesion and integrity of monastic prayer. He saw it as a tradition that had developed and varied with time, and continues to do so. Thus whereas in the wake of Vatican II there had been a purge of extraneous additions, he now saw these returning, and could forsee a future time when they would again be removed.

Vatican II gave discretion to monastic communities to celebrate the Offices in accordance with their particular circumstances  - a move which he welcomed. As it was once expressed to him there was a need to ensure that the opus dei  did not become the onus dei.

Fifty years ago he thought not a few monks did not know Latin, and the Office was recited automatically without attention being paid to the meaning. Often the Offices were run together, with long sessions in church of Mattins, Lauds, Prime, the private Masses of the monks, the Conventual Mass and Terce, all in one more or less continuous block.

Now it is usual to say the Offices at the proper time of day - St Benedict 's insistence on things being accomplished by daylight pre-dated by many centuries the invention of moderns means of artificial lighting.

The public prayer of the community had, from the beginning been different from that of cathedral canons. This has survived in the choral offices of the Church of England, and the public recitation of the Office, a tradition which he regretted was lacking in the Catholic Church.There was a Benedictine tradition of memorising the Office, particularly when books were a scarce resource; thus the little hours were learned so as to say them when working in fields, or Complice so it could be said without artificial light. He cited the example of a Czech monk he had met at Norcia who after years of imprisonment in his home country by both Nazis and Communists had escapedand lived there in exile. He knew the Office by heart, a legacy of solitary confinement.

The tradition of Lectio Divina was a long standing one. The modern method of seeing first what the text actually says, then what it means, followed by what it means to or for the particular reader leads then to contemplative prayer. The aim is that it forms part of the monk, in effect, and leading to him praying all the time.

Communal life had changed markedly over the centuries, and now was not same sort of life as in earlier centuries, let alone that which St Benedict described. One major change was to monks having their own cells rather than sleeping in a single dormitory - thus the individual monk's cell was the most likely place for him to engage in lectio divina. Similarly the Benedictine emphasis on silence was partly to manage the realities of a large number of men (or women) sharing all their communal living spaces.

The Bible was at the heart of monastic prayer. In the past portions of it would have been memorisesd and the text copied for personal use. As arezsult monastic scriptoria produced many biblical commentaries - he cited the works in this vein of St Bede as an early English example. There was a consequential identification of the concept of the Biblical word  as the Word, that is Christ in the Benedictine tradition.

The talk, with its emphasis on the prayer life of monasticism, and not just on the functions and practicalities of daily monastic life, as is so often found in descriptions of the horarium and daily life, was a valuable corrective and reminder of what monasticism is intended to achieve for the individual  and for the community.

That said the Abbot had no illusions about the fact that monastic life required a constant application to its routines and structures by the individual monk - as one fellow Benedictine had once said to him the life was simply "one damn thing after another." Thus does the monk make his spiritual progress!