Catharina

 Miraculous healings helped to make Scherpenheuvel a popular pilgrimage site. One well documented miracle happened to Catharina Serraerts.

Catharina Serraerts was born into a prominent family. She was also born with a crippled left leg. Her left leg was shorter than the right and her left hip was misaligned, causing her left knee to hit her right thigh. Her family had several doctors attempt to help her, but the best they could do is provide her with a very thick shoe that allowed her left foot to reach the ground. She could walk, but with great difficulty and pain. 

Archbishop Hovious had known Catharina since she was a child. At the age of 16 she became a cloistered nun. The cloister was 20 miles from Scherpenheuvel. The other nuns and their mother superior were witnesses to Catharina's disability. Their confessor who visited the cloister was a witness. The archbishop was a witness. Her family and their doctors witnessed her disability. The doctors had given up hope for a healing. 

Word began to spread about miraculous healings at Scherpenheuvel. One day, when Catharina was 35 years old, a nobleman on a journey to Scherpenheuvel stopped by the cloister where Catharina had spent her entire adult life. He noticed her disability and offered to let her ride to Scherpenheuvel in his carriage. The Mother Superior consented to let Catharina leave the cloister accompanied by another nun. The nobleman spent three days in the nearby town of Diest. The nuns were also provided a room at Diest. Each of the three days they went to Scherpenheuvel to pray before the miraculous statue of Mary. After returning to the cloister, on the way to her room, Catharina felt something happening to her leg. She realized that a healing had begun. That night she fell asleep praying rosaries. In the morning the healing was complete. She could walk normally and did not need the thick shoe.

Those who had witnessed her disability now witnessed her healing. The other nuns at the cloister, the Mother Superior, the doctors, her confessor. She was allowed out of the cloister once more to go see Archbishop Hovious. (The archbishop's own sister had previously gone to Scherpenheuvel and had been cured of a fever.) The nobleman who had taken her to Scherpenheuvel, the Marquis of Havre, returned to see the miracle. This miracle was recorded in P. Numan's history of miracles at Scherpenheuvel, published in 1604 at Leuven.