Statues in trees?
The history of Scherpenheuvel starts with a statue of Madonna and Child in a tree. This seems rather unusual to a fellow like me who was born and raised in the USA. However, Scherpenheuvel is not the only place in Belgium where this happened. It seems that outdoor shrines were popular in the region. Recall that Hendrick Busman was in the habit of stopping to pray at a roadside shrine where he was instructed to build a chapel. That chapel became Kevelaer.
Researching about Marian devotion in the region of the Spanish Netherlands brought to light other instances of Marian statues in trees.
Our Lady of Stoepe, or Onze Lieve Vrouw van Stoepe, is a Marian title connected to the pilgrimage site of Stoepe, Belgium. Near the town of Ertvelde there was a statue of the Madonna and Child in an oak tree. A young man was in the habit of stopping to pray there. He was deaf and mute. One day, after praying there, he returned home able to speak. This became known and more people came. The priest at Ertvelde decided to remove the statue from the tree and put it in the parish church at Ertvelde to protect it from the weather. After the statue was moved to the parish, it returned somehow to the tree. Three times the priest took the statue to the church, and three times the statue showed up in the tree again. So, it was decided to build a chapel around the location of the statue. The place became known as Stoepe. It is a pilgrimage site today, though not as well-known as places like Scherpenheuvel. Scherpenheuvel became a fortified city and so could defend its chapel. Stoepe suffered destruction at various times during the wars that came after the Reformation and also during the French Revolution.
Here is an excellent web site that tells the history of Stoepe in great detail:
https://sites.google.com/site/stoepe/origin
https://sites.google.com/site/stoepe/inleiding
https://sites.google.com/site/stoepe/brochure-uit-1957
There are many pages at that site. The other pages can be navigated to from these pages. It is in Dutch. My web browser (Microsoft Edge) translated it for me. Google will turn up more web pages about Onze Lieve Vrouw van Stoepe.
Another example can be found in the history of the Chapel of Our Lady of Fever, Onze Lieve Vrouw ter Koorts, in Leuven, Belgium. Leuven is only 29 miles from Scherpenheuvel. Here a statue of Our Lady of Sorrows hung in a tree. People would come there to pray for Mary's intercession when a child was sick with a fever. This sounds very much like Scherpenheuvel, where people would come to pray for Mary's intercession for a family member or friend who was sick. Some students at the local university once tried to throw away the statue but found it too heavy to move far. After that it was decided to build a chapel for the statue. Matthias Hovius, archbishop of Mechelen, consecrated the chapel in 1603. You may recall from earlier posts that this is the same archbishop who gave official approval of Scherpenheuvel and who had the oak tree at Scherpenheuvel cut down. Also recall that the chapel at Scherpenheuvel has seven sides and each side has artwork representing one of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. Here is a web page about the Kapel Onze Lieve Vrouw ter Koorts:
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapel_Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-ter-Koorts
In fact, the practice is not limited to Benelux, or to the 17th century. Here in the United States, in the 1800s, a Marian icon was placed in an oak tree in Indiana. The following information comes almost directly from a pamphlet from St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana. It is edited for brevity. Notice the similarities. A Marian icon in a tree, popular devotion, processions, moving the icon to a chapel, healing during a pandemic. I have visited this beautiful shrine.
Monte Cassino Shrine
St. Meinrad Archabbey was founded in 1854 by two Benedictine monks from Switzerland. In those early days, monks and students discovered a favorite spot for hikes on a nearby wooded hill. Fr. Chrysostom Foffa, OSB, named it Monte Cassino. In 1857, Fr. Isidore Hobi, OSB, and some students attached an image of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception to an oak tree there. They carved a niche in the oak tree and protected the image with a crude wooden roof. Devotion to Mary at the little shrine grew. By 1866 a small chapel was built, and the image moved inside the chapel. A year later, sandstone of an excellent quality was discovered on Monte Cassino hill. The first excavated stones were set aside for the current chapel which was built in 1870. A hand carved wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin and Child was brought from Switzerland and installed. In 1871 a smallpox epidemic hit the region just before Christmas. Several died. On January 5 a pilgrimage was made to Monte Cassino where mass was offered, and a novena started. The pilgrimage was repeated on the last day of the novena, January 13. Once the novena had begun, not a single case of smallpox broke out. In thanksgiving, St. Meinrad students still make a pilgrimage to Monte Cassino each year around January 13.
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