During this Holy Year of Jubilee, we are having at least one Laudato Si’ Mini-Pilgrimage or environmental event in each of the FOUR Seasons of Creation!
Our Summer Laudato Si’ Mini-pilgrimage took place in August and was a visit to the beautiful North Yorkshire town of Knaresborough…
Pilgrims of all ages travelled from right across the Diocese and were welcomed at St Mary’s Catholic Church with a Mass celebrated by Parish Priest Canon Gerard Kearney. The glorious weather meant we could eat our packed lunches in the church’s beautiful garden, before setting out on a walk to visit St Robert’s Cave and the Chapel of Our Lady of the Crag.
Cllrs Margy Longhurst and Helen Westmancoat are last year’s and this year’s Mayor of Knaresborough respectively and generously suggested that four of their Knaresborough Town Guides could accompany pilgrims on their walk with information about the town’s religious heritage and natural environment. The Voluntary Guides were knowledgeable and great fun and they all greatly enhanced the experience!
Pilgrims heard about the key role played by the navigable River Nidd and the railway, and about the Castle Mill which had once manufactured linen for all Queen Victoria’s royal households. We were regaled with the stories of the Royal Forest of Knaresborough and how what was once King John’s hunting ground is now being rewilded and brought into public ownership as Knaresborough Forest Park.
One of the most significant saints of the C12th was St Robert, the Hermit of Knaresborough. The cave where he lived and the ruins of the tiny chapel where he was initially buried in 1218 are on the banks of the River Nidd. As a hermit, his life defined ‘Living Simply’ and he spent his days caring for those who were outcast or disadvantaged. Upon receiving 40 acres of Forest as a gift from King John, St Robert – a direct contemporary with St Francis of Assisi – showed his care for creation by taming the wild deer, even putting them to the plough so he could cultivate the land to feed the poor.
Walking back along Abbey Road, the pilgrims’ last destination was the Chapel of Our Lady of the Crag, where pilgrims were greeted by Anna Dimond, a parishioner, school lay chaplain and one of the Trustees of the early C15th wayside shrine. We heard how the tiny chapel was excavated and carved out of the cliff face by John the Mason, in thanksgiving to the Blessed Virgin for saving his young son from a rockfall in the quarry above the crag.
Pilgrimages to environmentally-important areas and other sacred sites within our Diocese this year have included:
31 May – Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds (via the Leeds-Liverpool Canal towpath);
9 August – From St Mary’s Catholic Church to the Chapel of Our Lady of the Crag and St Robert’s Cave on the banks of the River Nidd at Knaresborough;
4 October – A ‘LiveSimply’ Harvest Festival & Blessing of Animals at St Benedict’s Catholic Church in Garforth;
… and coming up next …
13 December – An Advent Eco-Fair and Rosary Walk at our Pastoral Centre, Hinsley Hall in Headingley.
(Please contact communications@dioceseofleeds.org.uk if you would like a FREE stall at this Winter event, to sell your eco-friendly crafted, recycled or repurposed items – especially if they’re suitable for last-minute ‘stocking fillers’ or ‘Secret Santa’ presents!)
Since 2018 our Laudato Si’ Mini Pilgrimages have been celebrations of God’s Creation and of our care for the earth, Our Common Home. They began as short, seasonal, guided walks through Ilkley’s Myddelton Grange estate woodlands to the Calvary led by Estate Manager Paul Elgar who, together with our Diocese of Leeds Property Office, initiated and implemented diocesan conservation projects on the Myddelton site. It is thanks to parishioners at Sacred Heart, Ilkley who came on that first ‘pilgrimage recce’ that proposals for wheelchair-accessible pilgrimages to the Calvary are in progress.
Feel free to get in touch via communications@dioceseofleeds.org.uk with suggestions for Laudato Si’ Pilgrimages in YOUR parish; your ideas will be warmly received!
The short pilgrimage routes are especially suitable for school groups and the Diocese of Leeds Faith in Action Awards.
We remember in our prayers the late Paul Elgar, the Myddelton Farm Estate Manager whose conservation knowledge and expertise was so much a part of these mini-pilgrimages between 2018 and 2021: may he rest in peace.
