For it is in giving that we receive

One of my favourite saints is St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of birds and animals. I suppose it should have been St Thomas the patron saint of architecture or St Phocas the patron saint of gardens, but it is St Francis that ended up as the patron saint of Towerwater.

It is said that your patron saint chooses you and you don’t choose your patron saint. St Francis’s view on life resonates with me. I am sure he will approve of our attempts to make the garden at Towerwater a sanctuary for birds and other creatures.

In 2003 we were traveling through the United Kingdom researching Keith’s family history. On our way to Holt in Norfolk, we happened to be in Little Walsingham looking for accommodation when we were informed that it was pilgrimage season and that there was none to be had. There was one bed available in one of the pilgrimage houses and it was decided that Keith, as a devout Anglican of the Anglo-Catholic persuasion, should take it up and experience some of the pilgrimage.

The rest of us had to find alternative accommodation, but that is another story for another day.

Some of us discovered that Little Walsingham is famous for its religious shrines in honour of the Virgin Mary and for centuries has been, a major pilgrimage centre. The village also contains the ruins of two medieval monastic houses.

The village was filled with people dressed in accordance with their religious vocations. It was an amazing experience to be there. I bought a little statue of St Francis at ‘The Shrine Shop’ opposite the old water pump-house at Common Place in Little Walsingham.

The old Walsingham Pump House at Common Place - Source: www.walshinghamvillage.org

The little statue of St Francis has since been standing in the Towerwater kitchen doing what patron saints do. His prayer serves as an inspiration for my life,

Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.