marian calendar     june

Sunday after Pentecost (Trinity Sunday)

Notre-Dame de Walcourt, Walcourt, Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse, Namur, Belgium

The first statue of Our Lady at Walcourt was said to have been carved by missionary St. Maternus for the chapel he built around 340 after converting the regional warlord. In 992, Norman pirates burned the chapel. A new one was consecrated in 1026. When an arsonist burned that chapel in the 1200s, witnesses saw the statue rise from the flames and fly into a tree, from which no one was able to move it. The Trinity Sunday celebration commemorates the miracle with a procession following the statue's route from the site of the church in Walcourt to that of the tree in Jardinet where, some time later, Count Thierry de Rochefort's horse stopped short at the sight of the statue in the tree surrounded by angels. The Count was unable to approach the statue until he knelt at the base of the tree and vowed to build a monastery there and restore the burned chapel. It then flew into his arms. The Count made good his vows, though the monastery is now in ruins and the chapel suffered several more fires. The wooden statue, sheathed in silver, was crowned in 1875. It looks Romanesque, not ancient--perhaps made for the 11th-century chapel. The Madonna is seated with the Child sideways on her left knee, his right hand on her chest. She wears a robe, mantle, and veil. Her face is oddly proportioned, with a high forehead, long nose, and tiny chin. The six-mile procession stops at 15 chapels along the way, the participants dressed in period costumes and singing ancient antiphons. At Jardinet, a 14th-century silver copy of the statue, hanging from a tree, is given to a man representing Count Thierry, after which the pilgrims tear branches from the tree to take home for good luck. (Information from Joan Carroll Cruz, Miraculous Images of Our Lady, Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., Rockford, Illinois, 1993. Picture from the shrine's former website, www.ndwalcourt.be.)   

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