Today in the UK society draws virtually all its culture from media culture, as by an umbilical cord, such that our society has virtually no culture of its own. How, on earth, did we get to this state, we should ask?
St Margaret Clitherow is certainly present to us because she is a saint, but the National Pilgrimage in her honour is important for it keeps alive her memory and her charism. She is someone who would not conform to the prevailing culture, but nurtured another culture in which she and many others thrived and grew. What is significant about her way of life is that all those who were part of the culture that tried, condemned and executed her were wrong. In exactly the same way that at least ninety per cent of those who were in Pilate's forecourt that Friday morning were wrong.
St Margaret Clitherow shows herself to be a cultural leader for the ordinary person in this country. She is a witness to not following the ambient culture, and of concretely nurturing a culture which aspires to be truly human.
On the day of the Pilgrimage the building which had been the lodge of the Abbot of St Mary's Abbey in York and had become the chambers of the Council of the North, an arm of the Government in York whose purpose was to suppress Catholics in Yorkshire, was deserted and sombre.
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