In 2023, Tiffany Barber attended the Walsingham Youth Pilgrimage as a member of the Ministry Team. After many years of taking part as a teenager, she reflects on last year’s pilgrimage when she was joined the Ministry Team, and experienced both a sense of achievement and a sense of love.
Over the last six years I have experienced the Walsingham Youth Pilgrimage in many different forms, I have been a pilgrim, a steward who oversees the security of the site alongside the event managers. However, this year I had my most rewarding role yet on the youth pilgrimage. I was a part of this year’s ministry team.
A part of being on the ministry team means you are needed the week before the youth pilgrimage for the planning and preparation of worship and fellowship involved in the week of the youth pilgrimage. A typical day during prep week consisted of: Morning Prayer, Breakfast, Planning until midday, Lunch, More planning until evening prayer, Dinner and then final bits of planning. Within the Planning sessions we as a team were responsible for filming scenes for liturgy some examples are: Introductory video to the theme and an interactive video explaining readings from the bible an example is Exodus. Being a part of the ministry team meant that you spent a lot of time with other Christians who were on the team, this helped me to grow in confidence and faith over the two weeks I was in Walsingham. I was very grateful for having multiple opportunities to be involved in worship, some of the roles I had during the liturgies were: Explaining the introductory video, participating in the intercessions during Tuesday morning’s mass and Friday morning doing a sketch with Bishop Will Hazelwood.
The most rewarding part of involvement with Liturgies was the Wednesday evening. On Wednesday evening we celebrated the healing ministries alongside compline, I was very honoured to be given the opportunity to perform the healing ministry of laying on of hands. This healing ministry was particularly important to me as a pilgrim, to go to someone who did not know me and they could place their hands on my head and pray for me in silence brought me closer to God and give me a sense of comfort.
Alongside performing the healing ministry, I was given the opportunity to give my testimony of faith, this is something I thought I would never be able to do. Being a pilgrim and seeing past ministry team members being so vulnerable on a stage and talking about how they came to faith was always inspiring. However, struggling with confidence was something I always admired but thought I would never do.
Being able to be vulnerable on a stage in front of three hundred people was very much out of my comfort zone. Within my testimony I explained about my journey to faith and the fact that my family dynamic is a bit different but that does not stop any of us from finding people who love us regardless of where we come from.
I also explained how I have experienced darkness in life and how having my faith and how the youth pilgrimage has helped me to travel through the darkness into the light. To have comments from pilgrims that they were thankful for my words and that it has helped them gain some comfort with their own life story was extremely rewarding.
I told myself before the week began if I could inspire one person in that field, I would have made myself proud. However, I never thought I would touch as many people as I did. To be called an inspiration and have leaders who have been a part of your youth pilgrimage experience from the start tell you that they are proud of you gave me a sense of achievement and a sense of love.
Youth Pilgrimage 2024
You can find out more about the 2024 Walsingham Youth Pilgrimage at the Shrine’s website
To join the group travelling from South Wales visit our Youth Pilgrimage page:
Enter the Mystery 
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