Keeping Good Friday

Everyone seems to make a special point of keeping Easter Sunday. Children will tell you about Easter Customs – the Easter Bunny, rolling eggs, chocolate eggs and not being able to go to the Supermarket – cos they’re closed!

Everyone from the President of the United States to my six years old grandson will be able to give you an answer about the importance of it. (They don’t always get the right answer) – but everyone has one.

I thought this week we could focus on a couple of customs – slightly less well known which fall a couple of days before Easter Sunday. It’s all about carrying crosses. Scripture and the average churchgoer should be able to testify that on the Friday before Easter Sunday Jesus was not only crucified but was also required to carry his cross up the hill of Calvary.

Christians and pilgrims in Sheringham, a Norfolk seaside town have a short service in the centre of the town on Good Friday morning. After that a full sized cross is carried by volunteers up to the top of a local hill – affectionally known as Beeston Bump.

For those of my readers who don’t know Norfolk all that well – the English County of Norfolk is generally considered to be rather flat. A careful look at a map rather dispels this myth, but the reputation remains and the hill just outside Sheringham is generally referred to as “the Bump. As one gets older the route becomes more of a slog, but the view from the top, where the cross is placed and a second service said is really rather good.

By lunchtime everyone seems to have returned home and the event is over.

Not so for my second Good Friday custom. The Student Cross pilgrimages. They have begun much earlier in Holy Week. All the Student Cross groups converge on the Norfolk town of Walsingham, where in 1061 the Lady Richeldis is said to have received a vision of the Virgin Mary.

The Student Cross walks first happened in 1948 – and today these groups come from as far away as London, Nottingham and Leicester, obviously taking several days to reach their destination.

I was really pleased to see that the idea has been adapted to include families and children – they walk very much shorter distances, some taking only a few hours.

Even so they converge on the Roman Catholic shrine and Slipper Chapel at Walsingham before making their way to the centre of the town.

Two great customs and I think for me they mark up what can be for many a difficult day.