Pilgrimages
Sacred Places Journal
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21 September 2001: Fulham and Southwark
Around London on the Tube, people holding newspapers with President Bush headlined: The Hour is Coming.
Tired after a long, lovely day that included a visit to Fulham Palace, the historic summer retreat of the Bishop of London-including Nicholas Ridley before he was hauled off to Oxford to be burnt so excruciatingly at the stake-we arrive at Southwark Cathedral.
This is the most appropriate place to begin my pilgrimage, as the medieval Augustinian priory here served as the meeting place for so many medieval pilgrims setting out on their journey to Canterbury-including Geoffrey Chaucer.
The site of Fulham Palace was first acquired by Bishop Waldhere in 704 and continued as a residence of the Bishops until 1973.
After Choral Evensong I stop at the shrine set up in the transept: An American flag, a spray of white flowers and a bank of candles. I light a candle and read the printed prayer: "Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and peace: Give to the people of the United States of America a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that they may use their liberty in accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
Southwark Cathedral lies on the South Bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge on a site occupied by a Church for over one thousand years. The main structure of today's church was built between 1220 and 1420. The Cathedral is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Southwark.
The entire nave is adorned with baskets of white flowers from the service held there earlier in the day-313 people who worked for a single Southwark company had died in New York. During Evensong we had prayed by name for those from this dioscese who had died in the Pentagon.
The pilgrimage theme continues as we eat supper in a restaurant decorated with scallop shells-the traditional emblem of pilgrims returning from the Holy Land.
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