Homecoming

The old Abbey in evening sunlight

St Mary's Abbey West Malling:
always a place with a sense of homecoming for me.
It's a wonderful blend of the old and new- little of the original building remains, but what does is spectacular; and the 1966 Abbey church where the community worships will not be to everyone's taste, but holds a simple beauty, clean lines, glowing tiles, warm wood.

I escaped for a day, and a night
and prayed the hours with the Benedictine community.








I wrote in my journal,
'I'm here to put down a marker.
To recognise all that the last 12 weeks has and hasn't been;
to give thanks,
an offering of praise perhaps;
to re-orientate myself towards routine;
to sit awhile in God's love (for there's no escaping the sense of it here)...
How appropriate that I should be doing this in a week when many will be attending their ordination retreats. I reflect on that time in my own life and think of those preparing for such a step...The air smells like incense, and the stream thunders.'

 

 

One task I set myself was to walk the labyrinth here, as I did at St Beuno's (with bare feet, as in Norwich - this warm June day a very different prospect to snowy Wales in April!). It seemed very complicated, and took a long time to get to the centre - in fact I had no idea how I was going to reach it! Perhaps a metaphor for the walk we take to the heart of God, and how that doesn't happen quickly, and sometimes seems so far off, but suddenly we are there. It's hard to leave that place, but we carry a sense of the Presence with us as we journey onward and homeward.

Thanks to the Very Revd Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral for these recent reflections on pilgrimage, 'In truth, one can never say about a pilgrimage that it is over, since every end becomes a new beginning. Every pilgrim coming to the quietness of a holy space only completes their pilgrimage when their footsteps lead them home again, carrying with them not only all the stories they have heard, but the experiences they have had, which have added to their own story.'