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 Our
Lady of Cardigan can trace its origin to the middle ages. A beautiful
legend tells us that by the side of the river TeIfi a statue was found
of Mary, "and her sonne upon her lappe, and the... taper bernynge in
her hande" It was brought to the church but would not remain there,
returning three or four times to "the place where now is buyIded the
church of our Lady". That church is called St. Mary's, and the visitor
can still see at its east end a chantry built to hold the statue,
where pilgrims came to make their devotions. A priest sang Mass there
daily in honour of Our Lady.
St. Mary's dates from 1158. If it was built to accommodate the shrine
then Our Lady of the Taper has an ancient history indeed. The statue
was probably brought from Arras, where the devotion already existed,
by Flemish wool merchants trading out of the port of Cardigan.
Benedictine monks from Chertsey Abbey were placed in charge of St.
Mary's, and from their priory in Cardigan (now the local hospital)
they cared for it until in 1538 they were expelled and the shrine
destroyed. It was a famed place of pilgrimage. The Knights
Hospitallers of St. John kept a hospice in the town where the Angel
Hotel now stands, and there they welcomed pilgrims who, we are told,
left many gifts at the church. Just outside town, on the old pilgrim
track, was a chapel by a stream where wayfarers made their final
devotions before walking to the shrine. It was the same distance from
St. Mary's as the Slipper Chapel in Walsingham is from the shrine
there.
Devotion to Our Lady was once universal throughout Wales, as is plain
from the number of places named Llanfair or Capel Mair, or the many
flowers and plants called by her name. In those days no girl was
called Mair. The name was reserved for Our Lady. Girls named after her
were called Mari, not Mair; and this out of reverence.
There were other taper shrines apart from Cardigan and Arras. One
stood in Haverfordwest. The most notable was at Cagliari in Sardinia.
It dates from 1370 when a Catalonian ship foundered offshore. In it
was a statue of Our Lady of the Taper which was brought to land. A
church was built for it on a headland and named Santa Maria di Bonaria
(of the good air) because people claimed that its presence had cleared
the place of a pestilential air. Cagliari is central to the Western
Mediterranean. Spain controlled it and Spanish sailors adopted Santa
Maria di Bonaria as their shrine. It was in the care of Ransomer
priests whose vocation was to rescue Christian captives from the
Moors. They were great seafarers and became chaplains to Spanish
ships. Wherever they went they brought their devotion with them. They
founded a shrine in Cuba. In Tenerife you can find a place named La
Candelaria with its church and shrine. In South America a settlement
was called Santa Maria de los Buenos Aires the name of the Cagliari
shrine translated into Spanish. We know it as Buenos Aries.
How did the Catalonian ship that foundered off Cagliari come to have
the statue on board? One fact may provide a clue. Forty years
previously Catalonian merchants and sailors had thronged British
waters. Cardigan was then an important port. Could they have called
there, seen the shrine, and decided to have a copy made?
In 1904 Breton monks, living in exile near Cardigan, revived the
devotion. They named their abbey church Our Lady of Cardigan, and gave
the same title to a little church they opened in the town in 1912. But
they left some years later, and a generation passed before the name
was heard again.
Martin Gillett, who later founded the Ecumenical Society of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, alerted Bishop Petit to the fact that Cardigan
had once been a famous place of pilgrimage. Once Bishop Petit had the
bit between his teeth swift action followed. On 27th May 1956, a great
concourse of people from all parts of Britain came to re establish the
devotion in Cardigan. On 20th July 1970, Bishop Petit came with Bishop
Fox to consecrate a new shrine church. Three days later a pilgrimage
saw the statue carried from its former location to rest in the new
church.
The 1956 statue did not prove durable and after a period of experiment
it was decided to commission a new statue in bronze from Mother
Concordia, O.S.B. It was blessed on 3rd February 1986, in Cardiff
Metropolitan Cathedral, and designated as the Welsh National Shrine of
Our lady. During the next three months it was brought the length and
breadth of Wales, and wherever it went its beauty caught the
imagination and aroused the devotion of those who saw it.
On Pentecost Sunday, 18th May 1986, it was solemnly installed in its
permanent home. A taper blessed by Pope John Paul II was placed in its
hand and lit. A special message signed personally by the Holy Father
was read out in the presence of 4,500 pilgrims.
The new status of Our lady of Cardigan as National Shrine means that
more pilgrims come. We welcome them. We welcome their prayers.
The message of the statue is that Mary presents her Son to us as she
did to the Wise Men, to be adored. The taper in her hand testifies
that he is the Light of the World. May all who come here learn to
treasure, as Mary did, the word of God in their hearts, and live by
the light of her Son, who is her Saviour and ours.
Website
"Year of the Eucharist" - The Bishops have decided that this year's
National Pilgrimage will conclude with a Corpus Christi procession to
celebrate the year, hence the date has been changed from the 3rd
Sunday of May to the Sunday after Corpus Christi - 29th May.
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