As always, my spiritual batteries are all recharged, having returned from the wonderful experience of walking and participating in the twenty-seventh annual Christus Rex Pilgrimage, adding my own minor oddities to what Fr Caldow called "the who's who of the Traddy Zoo". Many thanks especially to pilgrim friends of mine, David and Lyle, who between them were great supports, and to Fr Rowe, my erstwhile parish priest, whose private Masses I essayed to serve as always.
I had resolved to receive Holy Communion at each of the five High Masses in worship of the Five Sacred Wounds of Our Lord, which I was able to do, and to focus my devotion said the Chaplet of the Holy Wounds also. There is a pleasing symmetry about the gloriously sung and brilliantly executed Masses: the Requiem for deceased pilgrims at 7 pm at the Cathedral in Ballarat on Thursday evening beforehand; the Votive of the Holy Cross at 6 am (a rather early hour!) at the same on Friday morning; the Votive of Our Lady Help of Christians at 11 am in the pine glade at Campbelltown on Saturday; the Pontifical Mass at the faldstool coram episcopo of Christ the King at 3 pm on Sunday in Bendigo Cathedral; and the Votive of the Trinity at 9 am on Monday morning afterward.
I added a very pleasant coda to the pilgrimage, by driving back to Melbourne airport in a hire car, with stops at Malmsbury (whose Botanic Gardens and Viaduct are well worth looking at) and, my favourite, Hanging Rock – which I successfully climbed during a providential break in rain showers, though I didn't find poor Miranda.
I hope to undertake it one year .
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