LONDON — For five years, a group of 60 Catholics and Anglicans has been visiting the 84 Marian shrines in England that had been destroyed during the Reformation.
“We offered prayers and sacrifices to make reparation and atonement for our sins and the sins of our country,” said Frances Scarr, chairman of Art and Reconciliation Trust, at a press conference April 29. The conference was held, appropriately enough, at the Charterhouse, where proto-martyr St. John Houghton had served and where St. Thomas More had received spiritual formation during his four-year residency as a young man.
The “fruit of that prayer and sacrifice,” Scarr said, is a memorial, a sculpture entitled Mary Most Holy, which is scheduled to be unveiled next year in Chelsea near the very spot where the Marian shrines were burned. Cromwell, instigator of the burnings, was himself beheaded at Henry VIII’s order in 1540.
Make sure you read the whole post from the National Catholic Register. I am just blown away by this sculpture. I find it amazingly haunting and beautiful. Wow.
(h/t The Kitchen Madonna)
I’ve really enjoyed reading your blog this morning! I also find the picture of the sculpture uncommonly beautiful and haunting. Thanks for sharing your life.
Suzanne,
Wow! Thank you for your very kind comment!
And yes, that sculpture is beautiful. I keep coming back to it and just staring. I can’t wait to see the full shrine when it is finished!