Parish of Llandudno North Wales, Rector's letter June 2008

September 2008

During June Gaynor and I spent a few days in the Basque city of Bilbao, an interesting place with many things to see including the famous Guggenheim Museum. One of the most interesting places we visited during our stay was the basilica of Our Lady of Begoňa (pictured below) dating from the sixteenth century.

This church is situated in the district of Begoňa high up on a hill overlooking the city and visible for miles around. The name ‘Our Lady of Begoňa’ comes from an appearance the Blessed Virgin Mary is believed to have made to some local people in the early 16th century and under this title Mary is the patron saint of the whole Biscay region of Spain. In the Basque language she is affectionately called ‘Amatxu’ - Mother.

One way of getting to this church is to walk up the Mallona Steps from the old town area of Bilbao. These are very steep, perhaps even steeper than many of the paths up the Great Orme, and it is a long climb up to the church at the top. Along the way at intervals are the ‘Stations of the Cross’, which devotion many pilgrims to Our Lady of Begoňa doubtless follow on their way to the shrine. The steepness of the way must add to the sense of being with our Lord in his ‘via dolorosa’.

I have to confess at this point that there is another, easier way to get at least part of the way to the top - a lift, which we indeed took! The upper part of the ascent which we did do on foot was through a built up area with lots of blocks of flats and I couldn’t help feeling that these had spoilt what must once have been a very beautiful area. It must also seem a bit strange doing the stations in such a busy built up area before arriving at the peace of the sanctuary above.

Yet on reflection I began to feel that these rather ugly blocks of flats actually added something to the whole feel of the place. The church and its immediate area were still beautiful and peaceful but being so near to such a busy residential area meant that here ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’ were all mixed up together. Pilgrims doing the ‘Stations’ on the way up to the shrine would be praying in the midst of the normal life going on around them, bringing that life to God’s throne of grace.

This is surely as it should be. Our spiritual lives, our worship and our prayer are surely not meant to be cut off, or detached from normal life. When Our Lord was crucified he had to carry his cross through the teeming, noisy, messy streets of Jerusalem and He died in full view of the passing crowds. Mary, his Mother, whose shrine at Begoňa we are considering, stood at the foot of the Cross in full view of anyone who happened to be there.

This month we keep Holy Cross Day, which this year falls on a Sunday. It is a day which gives us the opportunity to celebrate the triumph of the Cross in a less emotionally fraught atmosphere than in Holy Week itself. As we keep it though we need to remember that we must not lock the Cross up in our churches and holy places but live and pray this mystery in the messiness of the world around us. Wouldn’t it be great to have the Stations of the Cross on the slopes of the Great Orme?

As a short postscript to my letter – the Begoňa is also a flower (begonia in English) - and in Bilbao in front of the Guggenheim Museum is the famous Puppy which is covered with these flowers.

Fr John.

Photos of the basilica and the Puppy can be seen in the Parish Magazine for September.

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Previous letters:

January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007