Epiphany in an English Cathedral: Light in Midwinter Featuring the Reverend Dr. Les Fairfield CONNOISSEURS TOURS • 1-800-856-1045January • [email protected] 3 -14, 2015 • 1-912-351-9525 Dear Friends, The Feast of the Epiphany has long been associated in Western Christianity with the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus. Thus the Feast of the Epiphany (the word in Greek meaning “the Appearing”) came to symbolize the revela- tion of Christ to all the nations of the world. During the Middle Ages several other stories from Jesus’s life came to be linked with the Epiphany also. One was Jesus’s baptism in the River Jordan, where the voice from Heaven revealed Jesus’s identity as the Son of God. Another story was the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus turned ordinary water into the finest wine. John the Evangelist says of this miracle, “He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.” The Feast of the Epiphany celebrates those wondrous moments when Jesus’s love and power burst into our life. Over the past thousand years, English cathedrals have celebrated the Epiphany in beautiful and moving ways. I am inviting you to come and celebrate the Light of the World in three English cathedrals... St. Paul in London, Canterbury, and Norwich. We will also visit some parish churches where the Light has shone brightly (for example, the parish church of St. Martin in Canterbury, where Christian worship has been continuous since the 580s). Along the way we will be telling stories about “moments of epiphany” in Anglican history - moments when the Gospel broke through the usual muddle of ordinary people’s lives (people like us) and gave them hope and insight and power. Often we all need these “Aha” moments, especially in mid-winter when life can seem dark and gloomy. Here is a chance for a pilgrimage into the light, into the world of the English cathedral where our Anglican heritage took shape. Come join us! The Rev. Dr. Les Fairfield Professor Emeritus of Church History, Trinity School for Ministry, Ambridge, PA CONNOISSEURS TOURS • 1-800-856-1045 • [email protected] • 1-912-351-9525 Saturday, January 3: second most ancient diocese in England (found- ed in 604 AD) after Canterbury. Here the weary UNITED STATES TO LONDON We will fly overnight across the Atlantic as we pilgrims found shelter in the exquisite Norman begin our pilgrimage. cathedral, dating from the 1080s. We will enjoy this perfect early example of Norman architec- ture and decoration, which we will contrast with Sunday, January 4: SUNDAY IN LONDON Please plan to arrive before 10:00 AM in London. Canterbury Cathedral, built a century later in the Our London panoramic tour begins at 1:00 PM new emerging Gothic style. We arrive in Canterbury in time for the Epiphany service of Evensong, after which we settle into the Canterbury Cathedral Lodge for dinner and overnight. Tuesday, January 6: EPIPHANY IN CANTERBURY Following breakfast in the Canterbury Lodge we will take a short walk to the parish church of St. Martin, just outside the medieval walls of the town. The chancel of St. Martin’s was built for Queen and concludes with Evensong at Westminster Bertha of Kent in the 580s, and is the oldest Abbey. After dinner at our hotel those of us who space in England where regular and continuous wish will attend the evening service at Holy Trinity, worship has been offered (now for over 1400 Brompton (the home of the Alpha Course, a great blaze of Light in Western Christianity today). Dinner and overnight at The White Hall Hotel, Russell Square. Monday, January 5: PILGRIMAGE TO CANTERBURY After breakfast at our hotel, we will follow the steps of the pilgrims who travelled to Canterbury in the age of Geoffrey Chaucer (one bright light in the troubled 14th century). On the way we will stop - as many pilgrims did - to visit Aylesford Priory in Kent, a medieval house of the Carmelite Friars who of- fered hospital- ity to the many years). It was on this spot that St. Augustine wor- thousands who shiped, the herald of the Gospel sent from Rome passed along by Pope Gregory the Great in 597 to evangelize this pilgrimage Anglo-Saxon England. If any church can be called way. the cradle of Roman Christianity in England, St. After Martin’s can claim first place. After lunch in the lunch we will medieval center of Canterbury town, we will continue on to gather for a time of teaching and reflection at Rochester, the the Canterbury Lodge. As the evening shadows darken, we will enjoy a special Evensong service CONNOISSEURS TOURS • 1-800-856-1045 • [email protected] • 1-912-351-9525 epiphany of the Gospel, expressed in architecture and glass. At the end of the day, we pay a visit to the village of Lavenham, one of England’s most per- fectly preserved medieval towns. Also a center for the woolen trade in the later Middle Ages, Lavenham’s market square gives us a vivid image of East Anglian town life in the 1400s. We return for dinner and overnight to Long Melford and the Bull Inn, a 15th century half- in Canterbury Cathedral, celebrating Christ as the Light of the World. Dinner and overnight at the Canterbury Cathedral Lodge. Wednesday, January 7: LIGHT AND BEAUTY IN LONG MELFORD After breakfast we travel north-eastward into East Anglia, through the Stour Valley (which produced thousands of pilgrims to New England in the 1630s). Our destination is the exquisite village of Long Melford, where Holy Trinity parish church stands on a little rise overlooking the three-mile-long timbered building with a huge fireplace in the main street in the village. “snug” and a warm welcome to weary travelers. Long Melford was a center of the English woolen trade in the Middle Ages. Its wealth helped Thursday, January 8: JULIAN OF NORWICH it survive the Black Death in 1348 and the Peasants’ AND HER “REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE” Rebellion in 1381 (the town served the rebels so After breakfast we travel by coach to Norwich, a much free ale that they left Long Melford intact). cathedral city with one of the finest collections of Later a number of wealthy wool merchants medieval parish churches in the country. financed the rebuilding of Holy Trinity parish Our first stop in Norwich is St. Julian’s church, church in the late medieval English Perpendicular where the mystic Julian lived for decades after style, whose vast windows admit oceans of light receiving a series of visions from God. Whereas into the nave. Holy Trinity, Long Melford is a living the teaching of the 14th century Church emphasized wrath and punishment, Julian’s revelations announced God’s love and mercy. Julian received these “showings” during a deadly illness, and then retired to a tiny cell in the church for decades while she pondered their meaning. When she finally composed a long text of her “Revelations of Divine Love,” Julian emerged as the most brilliant CONNOISSEURS TOURS • 1-800-856-1045 • [email protected] • 1-912-351-9525 theologian of her day. We will visit her tiny “an- nating the nave with ethereal brightness. These chorite” cell (faithfully reconstructed after German three churches in a simple seaport town tell the bombing in World War II) and visit with the staff story of Anglican urban ministry over a thousand at the Julian Centre nearby. years. After lunch we enjoy a tour of Norwich Cathe- After lunch dral, one of the most lofty and splendid of Eng- we travel back land’s great churches. We will conclude our tour toward Norwich and pause for a visit to the An- glican Shrine of Our Lady in Lit- tle Walsingham. A great pilgrim- age destination in the Middle Ages, it was second only to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury. When King Henry VIII dissolved the English monasteries in the late 1530s, the shrine with Evensong in the choir. Dinner and overnight of Our Lady was demolished, only to be re- at the Maids Head Hotel. created in the mid-20th century. Today it hosts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, who come to pray and wait - and be healed in the Friday, January 9: LIGHT AND BEAUTY waters of the Saxon spring. Combining Anglo- IN KING’S LYNN AND WALSINGHAM Catholic piety with strong Evangelical preach- After breakfast we will travel to the coast of ing, the Anglican Shrine of St. Mary is a brilliant Norfolk, to the town of King’s Lynn - the busiest port in England during the Middle Ages, largely thanks to the East Anglian woolen trade with the Continent. King’s Lynn has three brilliant church- es, each a blaze of light in its unique way. All Saints’ is an ancient Norman building amidst a bleak housing estate, to which it has a wonder- ful ministry of hope. St. Margaret’s has a great cathedral-like nave, founded in 1101, and the choir fea- tures one of the “point of light” in a secular country today. We most fascinating return to Norwich for dinner and overnight at the collections of Maids Head Hotel. wooden carv- ings in England. St. Nicholas is Saturday, January 10: a 15th century THE MEDIEVAL CITY OF NORWICH Perpendicular After breakfast in our hotel, we visit the famous gem, with vast Dragon Hall, built in 1430 as the center of the windows illumi- woolen trade in Norwich. This beautiful timbered CONNOISSEURS TOURS • 1-800-856-1045 • [email protected] • 1-912-351-9525 building served as an emporium for the flourish- ing commerce between Norwich and the Continent.