The day I visited St James Catholic Church in Reading, England, the heat was fierce. It was June 25, not even the height of summer, yet the daytime temperature had climbed to 35°C. Walking through the hot streets of an unfamiliar city in search of a church felt to me like a small pilgrimage.
At last, beside the ruins of Reading Abbey, I found the church. It was St James Catholic Church. The doors were firmly closed.
Then I noticed an unexpected sentence on a sign beside the church. It said that this was the starting point of St James’ Way, a route linked to Santiago de Compostela. Reading Abbey had been an important place for pilgrims in the Middle Ages, and today pilgrims still begin St James’ Way from here.
Could I, too, begin St James’ Way from this place?
St James Catholic Church in Reading
At first, I thought I was going to find a cathedral in Reading. But Reading does not have a cathedral with a bishop’s seat. The place I found was St James Catholic Church, standing beside the ruins of Reading Abbey.
The more I looked into its history, the more I realised that this was not simply a parish church. It was a place that held both the deep Christian history of Reading and the story of Catholic revival in England.
St James Catholic Church stands beside Reading Abbey Ruins, in the Abbey Quarter, between Forbury Gardens and the old Reading Gaol.
Reading Museum also explains that this Roman Catholic church was built within the site of Reading Abbey Ruins, and that it was designed by A. W. N. Pugin between 1837 and 1840.
A Midday Mass in the Heat
Because the doors were closed, I spent some time in the town centre and returned to the church in time for the 12:30 p.m. Mass. After walking through streets that felt almost boiling, the cool air inside the church felt like entering heaven at the end of a difficult path.
There was another small miracle. During Mass, I turned around and saw Black Sheep, who is not Catholic, still inside the church. He was not merely sitting there. He was standing and sitting with the congregation, taking part in the gestures of the Mass.
This was someone who usually waited outside whenever I attended Mass. What had happened? Was it a small miracle, or had the heat outside simply led him into the church?
The Name of St James and the Pilgrim Road to Santiago
The name St James also makes this church special.
St James was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, and he stands at the heart of the pilgrimage tradition to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The Cathedral of Santiago is traditionally believed to contain the tomb of St James, and since the Middle Ages countless pilgrims have walked toward that shrine.
St James Catholic Church in Reading is also connected with St James’ Way. This is a pilgrimage route in England that runs from Reading to Southampton, and is regarded as part of a longer journey that continues across the sea toward the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Reading Museum also describes St James’ Way as a long-distance walking pilgrimage route from Reading to Southampton, forming part of the Camino Inglés to Santiago de Compostela.
A path that begins in Reading, continues to Southampton, and then crosses the sea toward Santiago.
The fact that this church, bearing the name of St James, stands near that starting point made the place feel even more like a pilgrimage site.
As a traveller, I walked through a city.
As a pilgrim, I walked in search of meaning.
At St James Catholic Church, those two paths seemed to meet quietly.
A Church Rebuilt Beside a Ruined Abbey
That one sentence alone had already made this place a small pilgrimage site for me.
Reading Abbey was a royal abbey founded by King Henry I in 1121. It was once considered one of the largest abbeys in Europe, a place where royal authority and the glory of the Church stood together.
But in the storm of the Reformation, the abbey was dissolved. What had once been a great house of faith was left as broken stone walls and ruins.
The abbey disappeared, but the place was not left completely empty. The ruined stones remained in silence for centuries, and beside them a Catholic church was built again.
That church is St James Catholic Church.
A Church Holding the Stones of the Ruins
Built between 1837 and 1840, this church is known as one of the early churches designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, an important figure in the history of Catholic architecture in England.
Pugin is one of the leading figures of the Gothic Revival, and he is also remembered for his work on the Houses of Parliament and many Catholic buildings. But at St James, he did not use a Gothic style. Instead, he used a Neo-Norman style, as if to echo the 12th-century history of Reading Abbey.
What moved me most was the fact that the baptismal font inside the church includes 12th-century carved stone from Reading Abbey. A stone from the ruined abbey became part of the font in the new church.
A Small Sign of Catholic Revival in England
After the English Reformation, Catholics in England passed through a long period of suppression and silence. In that history, St James Catholic Church, built in the 19th century, carries a meaning beyond that of an ordinary local church.
Near the place where an abbey once stood, Mass began to be offered again. To me, this church felt like a small sign of Catholic revival in England, built upon the memory of a lost sacred place.
Sometimes the silence of a small church beside the ruins speaks more deeply than the grandeur of a great cathedral.
Walking with Reading Abbey Ruins
St James Catholic Church is best experienced together with Reading Abbey Ruins.
I first walked slowly through the abbey ruins. Among the broken stone walls and the traces of what remained, I could feel the time that had once been offered to God.
Then, at the end of that path, I turned toward St James Catholic Church. Standing before the church after walking through the ruins, I felt as if the rupture of one age and the healing of another were meeting quietly in the same place.
The Lost Abbey and the Church Rebuilt
The lost abbey and the church rebuilt.
Silence and prayer.
Wound and healing.
This small path in Reading did not feel like an ordinary walk. It felt like walking through the history of faith.
A Place Where Prayer Begins Again
A church that carries the memory of a ruined abbey.
A Mass offered again beside the ruins.
An old stone from the abbey becoming part of the baptismal font in the new church.
After losing my parents, there is a wound and sorrow in my heart that do not heal easily. I do not know when that wound will heal, or whether it ever truly will.
I still remember my parents in their old age, longing for their own mothers. Because the wound hurts, part of me wishes the memories would fade. And yet, perhaps like my parents, I too will carry this longing for the rest of my life.
Still, inside this small church rebuilt beside the ruins, I thought:
Just as prayer can begin again in a place that has fallen,
perhaps even over lost time, the path toward God can open once more.
On a pilgrimage path towards my mother, now a star
– Little Star
#CatholicPilgrimage #EnglandTravel #Pilgrimage #CatholicShrine #Santiago
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