THE CROSS WENT TO EPPING May Co To Haverstock Hill Next

By a Staff Reporter Bringing the Fatima message of penance to Epping, Essex, 33 men, ex-Walsingharn cross-bearers for the most part, I ast Sunday carried the original Wakingham (1947) Cross into the town from Bishop's Stortford, 15 miles away, then bore it a further four miles behind the parish priest as he entered 12 Catholic homes scattered throughout the parish, and consecrated them to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
This event, attended by 200 people, most of them men. was meant was a completion of the recent 14-Crosses Pilgrimage to Walsingham. and is to be repeated this Sunday in the neighbouring satellite town of Harlow, when parishioners will carry the Cross, now reposing in Epping Church, the intervening eight miles, from his home on Saturday, and papal Medal For was found overnight accommo
dation at Bishop's Stanford. vu u •ew
Twenty Irish labourers formed a orks W onian group of their own, and took their turn at the Cross.
dation at Bishop's Stanford. vu u •ew
The pilgrimage, which drew the sympathetic attention of a town where there are only 100 Catholics, included Crossbearers who left Bishop's Stortford at 9 a.m., and representatives of six of this year's Walsingham in Groups.
At least one of them travelled
An ex-Noncomformist minister. who had often preeched at Epping, took part. It was his first pilgrimage as a Catholic.
PRIEST IN HABIT
At each of the 12 homes the parish priest entered, the latter part of the official act of consecration to the Immaculate Heart was recited before a temporary altar erected in the house, and a blessing given. The consecration of the town of Epping was recited finally in a neighbouring field, where Benediction was also given.
Even small children took part in the pilgrimage along •a particularly tiring route of the hilly town of Epping, fields being crossed, stiles and fences negotiated, and muddy patches traversed. Parishioners bore their own statue of Our Lady, which was taken to Walsingham in the July pilgrimage. The tour of the Epping parish took exactly two hours.
A Dominican priest travelled in his habit half-way across London to join the pilgrimage, and brought an invitation from the Priory clergy at Haverstock Hill that a Cross be similarly borne this corning Rosary Sunday to that church. 1 understeed that the invitation will very likely be accepted.
In that eventeethe significance of the Rosary Sunday proposal lies in that the Vezelay Cross, which inaugurated the present series of pilgrimages, started from Haverstock Hill Priory in 1946.
Next Sunday, August 22, the CtOvs will be venerated at the conclusion of High Mass at 10.15 am. Then the crogs-bearers will take the cross to Harlow, where it will be venerated in the Drill Hall at 3 p.m.