[Gocamino] going on pilgrimage in Wales

[Donald Schell]

Dear Kathy,

Yikes, I hope you get this.  I didn't realize you were planning this 
trip or would have said something sooner - - -
- - - If at all possible visit Pennant Melangel just across the Welsh 
border from England in the north.  In a really beautiful, steep valley 
at the end of a country road, it's a 7th century church/foundation with 
a round churchyard, huge vertical stones buried deep in the earth and a 
restored Norman pilgrimage shrine honoring the Irish nun who came there 
as a missionary and whose hut was the first sacred dwelling on the 
site.

I think you may know that Bardsey is where I bought my pilgrim's 
walking stick at the nature shop in Bardsey's retreat house in 1995.  
That stick has now crossed the Pyrenees twice and done parts of the 
Camino in Spain three times.  There are stones from one of the springs 
there (and a couple of other springs that were medieval pilgrims' 
destinations) as well as small stones from Juan de la Cruz's monastery 
garden in Segovia and Teresa's first convent in Avila are buried under 
the baptistry at St. Gregory's.

You'll be taking the boat from Aberdaron to Bardsey.  Be sure to look 
in at the church there.  It's where the great Anglican poet/priest R.S. 
Thomas served and it's an old place with a wonderful fresh aura of 
holiness and faithful love and service.  Thomas wrote some lovely poems 
about the stillness of that church just before the first words of a 
Sunday liturgy.  His was a kind of rootedness that feels profoundly 
akin to pilgrimage.  Just a bit north of Aberdaron is the town where 
Gerard Manley Hopkins served as Catholic pastor in the 19th Century (a 
Jesuit).

I don't know about church dedicated to James there, but the pilgrimage 
tradition is very, very old in Wales.  St. David, when he was elected 
bishop journeyed to Jerusalem for consecration.  The tradition is that 
Bardsey was first settled by Egyptian (!) monks and that the area 
around Bardsey was a place where Celtic and Coptic Christianity met and 
the traditions blended for a century or more.

Have a blessed pilgrimage!

love,
donald

On Jun 28, 2005, at 12:30 PM, Kathy Gower wrote:

> I will be on pilgrimage in North Wales for the next two weeks, 
> traveling to Bardsey Island in the North Sea off the coast of the 
> Lleyn peninsula.
>
> Bardsey was called the "Land of 20,000 Saints" and it was said that 
> three pilgrimages to Bardsey were worth one to Rome.  The tides are 
> rough and boats sail only when the weather is right, from Aberdaron.
>
> The coast there is noted for old Viking settlements and at Rhiuw, 
> places where the Templars stopped on their way to Scotland after being 
> persecuted out of France by Phillip the Fair. (not the same one as the 
> story of Juana la loca...)  Stories abound....
>
> I'll write about it somewhere, I'm sure, but in the mean time, two 
> very pedantic questions:
>
> does the post ofice in London take credit cards...and
>
> are there any churches to St. James in Wales?
>
> hoping to here before I leave tomorrow am.,
> ultreya,
> k
>
>
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