Pilgrimage

Today we remember St Alban, it would be the day when the annual St Alban’s pilgrimage takes place when pilgrims from all around the diocese and beyond walk to our Cathedral and the shrine of St Alban, the first Christian martyr in Britain. This pilgrimage dates back to at least the C5^th as we read that a Bishop from France came over and visited the shrine and took back some soil from the site of Alban’s martyrdom to France.

Alban, a Roman citizen, living in the garrison town of Verulamium, had sheltered a Christian priest who was fleeing from persecution, was so moved by his faith he became a Christian himself and decided to swap clothes with the priest.

Almost immediately, Alban was arrested as he was assumed to be the priest. When asked who he was, Alban replied, ‘I am a Christian and I stand ready to do my Christian duty…My name is Alban and I shall always adore and worship the true and living God’.  Rowan Williams comments in his latest book Luminaries that our duty is not just to people who are with us now but to the future community in which all, friends and strangers, have their place.   

This Christian loyalty that Alban showed is that of a true pilgrim. ‘Pilgrims are loyal to where they are going - to the place where God’s power and love have appeared. Pilgrims keep their eye on the future, on the goal, and are loyal to the people alongside them on the pilgrimage but also to the people on the road ahead’.    

St Alban opened his home and his heart to a man running from persecution and decided to stand in his place and risk the penalty. He leaves us the legacy of a pilgrimage, a road that leads us forward in loving and serving God, in carrying the cross faithfully, aware that Jesus’ call to true life, with assurance and hope for eternal life, is the ultimate commitment in all we think and do.

‘I am a Christian and I stand ready to do my Christian duty…..I shall always adore and worship the true and living God’.   

The Alban Prayer

Almighty God we thank you for this place (the shrine),

built to your glory and in memory of Alban, our first martyr

Following his example in the fellowship of the saints

may we worship and adore the true and living God

and be faithful witnesses to the Christ

who is alive and reigns now and for ever. Amen

Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?              Matthew 16: 24-26