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A reflection and prayer from Brittany with Canon Edwin Counsell, who leads the Glamorgan Heritage Coast Ministry Area for the Church in Wales.

Good morning… or more correctly, bonjour, because I’m on pilgrimage from my home in South Wales, to Brittany, walking in the footsteps of St David… known as St Divy in this part of the world… and discovering the impact of his life that still resonates, 15 centuries later.

I’m near the village of Dirinon, a few miles from the city of Brest in North Western France, at the site of a holy well dedicated not to David, but to Non, his mother.

This is a place of real beauty, and stillness, in the heart of the Breton countryside, and I’m just the latest of a long line of pilgrims, stretching back a thousand years or more, who’ve been drawn to this place… probably on their way back from the nearby village of St Divy, named after, and dedicated to, Non’s saintly son.

But I’ve come here to the holy well, not the church, because there are fundamental things about St Non, that speak into the complexity of human life, and inform my pilgrimage.

Non’s well is a place of healing and wholeness, and the paradox is that it draws people, often in the times of brokenness in their lives, perhaps living with illness or injury, and the consequent pain that can overshadow everyday life and living.

For others, the wounds are hidden, yet the pain is equally deep; St Non herself settled here, in a life of prayer and solitude, towards the end of her life, having lived with the trauma of sexual violence… and of her son, St David, being conceived through that assault.

I’m searching for a contemporary understanding of ancient traditions, but I’m starting to discover deeper truths, that beauty and brokenness co-exist in human life in so many ways, spanning families and communities, as well as the centuries:

God of our pilgrimage,
take the brokenness of our lives
and find in each of us the corresponding beauty,
that reflects your love, healing and peace today:
Amen.

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