A Pro-Life Feast

In the year 2000, the Holy Father John Paul II decreed that the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham, mediaeval patroness of England, and in modern time patroness of all English-speaking peoples, was to be celebrated on September 24th instead of March 25th. The feast of Our Lady of Walsingham was celebrated for the first time on the new date in 2001. The feast of the Annunciation is increasingly celebrated as a pro-life feast, to call attention to the unborn; Our Lady of Walsingham's feast asks us to contemplate the joy of the Incarnation in the simple family life of the Holy Family at Nazareth. The new date and emphasis on this feast is timely considering how family life is under attack in Western culture. It was in the year 1061, in the little village of Walsingham, that Our Lady appeared to a widow, Richeldis de Faverches. It is said that she appeared three times in a vision and each time showed to Richeldis the house in which the Holy Family had dwelt in Nazareth. Mary requested that Richeldis build a replica of this house in Walsingham. Our Lady said: "Do all this unto my special praise and honor. And all who are in any way distressed or in need, let them seek me here in that little house you have made at Walsingham. To all that seek me there shall be given succor. And there at Walsingham in this little house shall be held in remembrance the great joy of my salutation when Saint Gabriel told me I should through humility become the mother of God's Son."