I returned from leading a retreat in Walsingham with the sensation of being filled, rather than emptied spiritually by the experience. Fullness was everywhere in the natural world: the horse chestnut trees laden with candles, the poppies spattering the hillsides and the cow parsley decking the hedgerows with lace. In the spiritual realm it was my intuition that in the days leading up to Pentecost, Erasmus’s prayer to Our Lady of Walsingham, which I have long made my own, was granted. It asks that through the power of the Holy Spirit we, imitating Mary’s attitude, might conceive the Lord Jesus in our inmost souls.