Ecumenical Pilgrimage to Mont St Michel

Warm ecumenical relations continue in one of our newest parishes in France. The Revd Peter Hales, priest-in-charge of Christ Church, Coutances, recently wrote in his parish magazine of a special invitation from the Roman Catholic Church to join them in their annual pilgrimage from Genet to Mont Saint Michel. Ten intrepid walkers, from the congregations at Coutances and Vezins, turned up early in the morning at Genet, still bleary eyed, to join over 1300 pilgrims to the ancient site. Monseigneur Stanislas Lalanne, the RC Bishop of Coutances, said prayers. To singing of a hymn, the pilgrims then set out across the sands for the 2 1/2 hour walk, sometimes wading through water up to their our knees, stopping at times to pray and sing. On arrival at the Mont, covered in mud and weak at the knees, the pilgrims faced the steep climb (about 800 steps) to the Abbey for mass.

Mont Saint Michel has been a place of pilgrimage for 1300 years. Some of the Anglican pilgrims, including a four-legged one, are pictured below.