marian anniversaries     april

Good Friday

Notre Dame des Sept Douleurs, Hondelange, Luxembourg, Wallonia, Belgium

In 1716, a Confraternity of Our Lady's Seven Sorrows was founded in the village of Hondelange in southeastern Belgium. The following year, heiress Anne de Reichling built an outdoor Way of the Cross through the Hondelange area, with stations marking the Seven Sorrows instead of the way to Calvary. Largely rebuilt in the 1800s, this became a pilgrimage route on the Friday before Easter, the day marking Jesus' crucifixion. The stations, with German inscriptions, are:

1. Simeon's prophecy: white stone stele, late 1800s, 55 yards from Chapelle Ste-Croix, depicting the presentation of Jesus in the temple
2. Flight into Egypt: white stone stele, late 1800s, 273 yards from Chapelle Ste-Croix under ancient linden tree, showing Mary on a donkey holding the baby, with Joseph standing
3. Losing of Jesus in the temple: white stone stele, late 1800s, 64 rue de la Chapelle, depicting Jesus surrounded by doctors of the temple
4. Meeting with Jesus carrying his cross: white stone stele, 1887, 24 rue de la Chapelle, with stucco panel showing Jesus falling under the cross
5. Crucifixion: sandstone calvary, 1717, rue de la Chapelle at rue Concordia, with relief showing Mary and John flanking the cross
6. Descent from the cross: dressed stone monument, 1887, 11 rue Concordia, with stucco panel showing Jesus' body lowered from the cross
7. Jesus' entombment: calvary, 1717, on cemetery wall

The Way of Sorrows ended at the cemetery chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows, which contained a wooden Pietà later moved to the parish church and now in the diocesan museum.   

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