Family Pilgrimage to Papay

Last weekend our family took a ferry out from the island of Westray to the tiny monastic island of Papa Westray.

We went through a farm to get to the monastery.

This is us, sitting in the Knap of Howar, the oldest standing house in Northern Europe. Its almost 6000 years old. Samuel (bottom right) doesnt look very interested in all this prehistoric Flintstone stuff but inside he’s doing somersaults!

Monks don’t live around here anymore. But back around the 8th century, this tiny island in the northern part of the Orkneys used to be the mission center for Orkney, Shetland, and probably the north of Scotland. The wandering monks were on their way to bring the gospel to Norway, Greenland and other remote places and many ended up staying here. Those bee-hive cells that the monks lived in are now getting washed out to sea.

The monks lived just over the hill from that old house.

A little church building called St Boniface Kirk still stands. Its one of the few remaining pre-reformation churches in Scotland still in use. We were here last year – when i took this photo. Its origins go back to the 8th Century AD but the present building was built in the 12th Century. But people have been living on this spot since, some people say, 6th Century BC.

Thats a really long time ago. People were living here a long time before the time of Abram (Abraham) who was told by God that his descendants would be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Weird to think what would have happened if God had chosen someone here in Orkney rather than someone from Iraq.

Down the road there is another monastic settlement known as St Tredwell’s Chapel. It was a nunnery of sorts and led by St Tredwell (Triduana). The chapel is still standing but its covered over.

I guess I really like this island because, when i look at the 6000 year old house and the remains of the monastery, and the old church over the hill, I think about God’s promise to Abraham that involved people living here at that time, as well as families down through the ages. And I think about how it led to a response from God’s people to take the blessing of the good news of Christ to all the nations, ending up monastic settlements and church buildings all the way to this remote island. Not many places where so much story is represented in one small space.

Technorati Tags: archeology, celtic, monastic, papa westray, pilgrimage