Our Lady of Willesden

When I was but a lad in the 1950`s I used to sing in my polyphonic Church choir the tenor part in the Mass of Our Lady of Willesden. I can still sing the Kyrie but have forgotten the rest. Unfortunately nobody had any knowledge of Willesden or what it had to do with Our Lady. Indeed it is only recently that the shrine again has come to my notice. The origins of the shrine are not clear. Pilgrims began going there in the early middle ages to visit two statues of Our Lady `The Black Madonna` Apparently a black madonna represents Our Lady of Sorrow. Willesden is Anglo-Saxon for Hill of the Well and many shrines to Our Lady were built beside them. What caused the place to become a plade of pilgrimage however is unclear. Willesden is now a built up area of London but at the time of St Thomas More, who used to visit the shire with his family, it was a country area and the Chruch of St Mary which contained the shrine was alone in the middle of the countryside. The statues were destroyed during the Reformation. With Catholic emancipation in the 19th century the Catholic Church bullt another Church to Our Lady of Willesden not far from the original St Mary`s now an Agnlican Church. A new statue was created from the oak trees in St Mary`s Churchyard. Recently the well was discovered underneath the Church of St Mary`s and one lady at least who was terminally ill in hospital had her vicar bring her water from the well. Suddenly she was seen crossing the road for more water at the well since Jesus had visited and cured her. The last I heard from the shrine was that Paul Day who is sculpturing the statue of Our Lady on the Chelsea embankment has been hired also to sculp a statue of Our Lady of Willesden. Indeed there is now renewed interest in the shrine. Perhaps Our Lady is at work. Certainly a Dr Crewkerne claimed at the Reformation that Our Lady had appeared to him and told her she still wished to be honoured at Ipswich and Willesden but the poor mand under the examination of Thomad Cranmer and his zealots soon recanted and denied the vision. But perhaps he was telling the truth. On my next visit to London I must get the undergound train to Willesden and find out what is happening there. Our Lady of Willesden pray for us.