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| The walk begins at the West Door of Llandaff Cathedral. Pilgrims would travel from the cathedral all the way to Penrhys (Image: Mark Lewis) source: WalesOnline |
In a recent article, The hidden spot in the heart of Cardiff that marks the start of a medieval pilgrimage route, Wales Online published details of how to retrace the steps pilgrims made hundreds of years ago along the Penrhys Pilgrimage Way.
The walk begins at the West Door of Llandaff Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of Jolly June Osborne, bishop of Llandaff who, instead of taking this meaningful walk through the Welsh countryside in the footsteps of former pilgrims, chartered an aircraft to fly her clergy to Spain to kick off the Llandaff 2020 Year of Pilgrimage at great expense to the diocese and an unnecessary cost to the environment.
After a false start, priests from more than 100 churches in Llandaff travelled to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain for their Clergy School taking the form of a pilgrimage from Monday, 13 May to Friday, 17th May, 2019.
The bishop of Llandaff's idea was to embark on an 'ambitious' Year of Pilgrimage to 'reinvigorate its work and worship' as part of the Church’s 2020 centenary celebrations under the hashtag #LlandaffInSantiago.
In a presentation to the Governing Body of the Church in Wales in April 2019 reported in Highlights April 2021, Jolly June said:
"In preparing for the year [of Pilgrimage], the diocesan clergy had gone on a pilgrimage together to Santiago de Compostela. Some said it was lavish but I wanted us to be together in a place where prayer had long been valued. The sense we gained there of being companions on a road together has been with us since then. 2020 was still a Year of Pilgrimage and we found ourselves on an untrodden road. God was teaching us how to tell his story and build for good."
"In preparing for the year [of Pilgrimage], the diocesan clergy had gone on a pilgrimage together to Santiago de Compostela. Some said it was lavish but I wanted us to be together in a place where prayer had long been valued. The sense we gained there of being companions on a road together has been with us since then. 2020 was still a Year of Pilgrimage and we found ourselves on an untrodden road. God was teaching us how to tell his story and build for good."
The Year of Pilgrimage fizzled out in the Coronavirus lock down but that left the diocese with greater opportunities to reinvigorate its work and worship. Coming up to 3 years after their expensive 'pilgrimage' to Santiago de Compostela little has changed.
Still embroiled in a long term battle with her Dean on charges of bullying, he remains doggedly in place while disillusioned clergy leave for pastures new leaving the diocese of Llandaff - where faith matters(!) - to pursue its now well trodden path, telling a 'joyful story' of Queer Theology.
Little has changed?
ReplyDeleteAu contraire Ancient Briton.
Following the 2020 Vision centenary and the "Year of Pilgrimage", there are fewer Parishes, fewer Churches, fewer Clergy and fewer pew sitters.
However there has been a growth in ineptitude, incompetence, negligence, disarray, disruption, dissatisfaction and hypocrisy.
And of course there are now seven Bishops in place to oversee it all.
It's all going so well.
There was a priest at Tonypandy and Clydach Vale a few years ago who always commented on how from his front gate he could "lift up his eyes to the hills" and see the statue of Our Lady of Penrhys high on the mountain and how living in the shadow of an ancient shrine of pilgrimage helped to energise his ministry. The late Bishop David Thomas used to preside at the Anglican Pilgrimages to Penrhys and blessed a statue of Our Lady of Penrhys in St Thomas Clydach Vale at the invitation of the Parish Priest. One year the homily at Mass referred to the various pilgrimage shrines of Our Lady throughout the world but stressed that the Diocese of Llandaff had its very own. Our Lady of Penrhys, pray for us! SD
DeleteI have always struggled with the notion that pilgrimage could involve an excursion by bus (or even a journey by air) to an holy place. My experience of pilgrimage is that the prayers and the presence of God unfold as one walks towards the place of pilgrimage. We meet God in the journey as it were. Many years ago I was asked whether I expected to meet God or His angels on a pilgrimage. If I am ever asked that question again I will tell this story.
ReplyDeleteOne day – thirteen years ago now, I was walking towards St David’s on pilgrimage and stopped to talk to an old man standing at the side of the road. I was in deepest Pembrokeshire walking through a valley. The man wanted to know what I was about and where I was going. I explained my journey and he listened carefully. He drew my attention to the brook at the bottom of a valley. ‘I met Christ in that brook eighty years ago - on the day I was baptised’ he said. He shared his experience with me and I was moved closer to God. Conversations like that only happen ‘on the road’ as it were.
The process of walking prayerfully has been a huge part of my spiritual journey. I’m sure that if I had been fortunate enough to have been invited to join the ‘pilgrimage’ to Santiago de Compostela by air the shared experience may have contributed something to my inner human being. But I am pretty sure that slogging up from Llandaff to Penrhys on foot would be more rewarding. I say that as someone who has walked to Penrhys across the mountains of Morganwg.
I have never had the opportunity to walk to Santiago but I know a man who did. His name was + Tony Crockett. Tony came along to a parish retreat at Llangasty and told us all about his fascinating journey from somewhere in France to the shrine. Tony illustrated his talk with slides and interesting asides about living on bread, olives and red wine for two months! Tony concluded with the thought that although it was wonderful to reach Santiago the journey had been more important than the destination.
Having said all that I acknowledge that many of us are simply physically unable to walk the distance between say Llandaff and Penrhys but will still experience the benefits of visiting an holy place.
Just a few thoughts on pilgrimage!
Glyn Austin
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2022/4-february/news/uk/proposal-for-mediation-in-aberdeen-orkney-diocese-is-shameful-says-witness
ReplyDeleteSame sh*t, different Church.
The parallels are uncanny.
Immovable shameless Bishopette, unsympathetic upper echelons, on-going rancour, pathetic suggestions of mediation, no apologies or reconciliation.
Has Caiaphas been on a pilgrimage to Scotland to study the MO of the Bitch-op of Aberdeen?
If so, here's hoping it was a one-way ticket and that she took Gerwhine with her.
DeleteNothing will improve in Llandaff until they've both gone for good.
Please don't wish her on us poor folk in the Highlands!
DeleteAt least the Dean of Aberdeen, (a Rev Berk) has had the good sense to resign and get out.
DeleteThe dud in the Llandaff Deanery shows no sign of vacating his dung hill.
"Queer Theology" looks a lot like loving and including one another to me, and takes up what seems a small fraction of Llandaff's communications for being "its path"...
ReplyDeleteanyway...
I think June would've done a lot better had she actually cared for clergy at home, rather than taken them off for a one-off holiday, I mean, pilgrimage, and expect gratitude years later...
Queer Theology is more accurately described as Deviant Theology, for which throughout history, there have been many gods from which to choose.
DeleteIt won't be much longer before the Cult in Wales reaps what it is sowing.
The worst thing about the whole Santiago expedition was not, to my mind, the cost, nor the means of transport ie. the chartered aircraft all the way from Poland, but the fact that those clergy who through medical conditions were physically unable to walk several miles in the middle of the day in 30C heat were, apart from the very first morning not even able to take part in the Eucharist because the Mass was celebrated out in the middle of the countryside each day.
DeleteNot my idea of a pilgrimage.
One who has walked to Penrhyn
That was the hardest thing for me.
DeleteRe: June's jolly, wasn't the Cathedral closed too? Piss up, brewery and all that?
ReplyDeleteWooden Spoon
Indeed Wooden Spoon.
Deletehttps://ancientbritonpetros.blogspot.com/2019/05/countdown-to-compostela.html
May I take this opportunity to remind commentators that 'anonymous' comments without a pseudonym are not published.
Authentic Anglicanism has nothing to do with pilgrimages or the intercession of saints.
ReplyDeleteThere is certainly nothing authentic about the Cult in Wales anymore.
Deletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-60340525
ReplyDeleteSome good news today.
DodoJo, Gerwhine and Caiaphas tomorrow hopefully.
They ALL going? Xxxxxxxxxxxxx
ReplyDeleteIf only they were.
DeleteI see in the Llandaff weekly notes that moves are afoot to resurrect the "Llandaff Cathedral Festival".
ReplyDeleteActivities for all ages are promised.
Sounds like it will be face painting in the Nave!
One imagines Canon Holcombe and those involved previously with the Llandaff Festival will be rather annoyed and sitting at home with their heads in their hands.
Delete