Sunday after November 2
Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van Scherpenheuvel, Scherpenheuvel-Zichem, Flemish Brabant, Belgium
In the 1200s, a cross-shaped oak tree became a site of Christian
devotion in Scherpenheuvel (known as Montaigu in French), some 30 miles
east of Brussels. A statue of the Virgin placed in the tree gained fame in
the early 1400s, when, the story goes, it fell to the ground, and a
shepherd boy who tried to carry it away became immobilized until his boss
returned the image to the tree. For some 150 years, pilgrims flocked to
the site, praying to Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel for relief from troubles,
particularly fevers. In the 1580s, Protestant marauders destroyed the
statue. Believers continued to frequent the oak, where a new statue was
installed in 1587. The Catholic pastor built a small chapel and began
conducting processions there in 1602. In 1604, a stone chapel replaced the
wooden one, and the ancient tree, long the subject of pious pruning and
now dead, was cut down. Replicas of the statue, made from the wood,
engendered daughter shrines in Europe and Canada. In 1609 Albrecht and
Isabella, Sovereigns of the Habsburg Netherlands, began construction of a
domed church in Scherpenheuvel, completed in 1627. In 1629, Our Lady of
Scherpenheuvel was credited with stopping an epidemic of plague, and in
1734, an onslaught of dysentery. After one of these miracles, the grateful
survivors pledged to reenact their candlelight procession annually on the
Feast of All Saints, November 2. The Keerskensprocessie still takes place
on the Sunday after that date, closing the pilgrimage season begun May 1
with a Great Trek from Antwerp. Another celebration is held every 25 years
to commemorate the canonical crowning of the statue on August 25, 1872
(1997, 2022, 2047). In 1922, Pope Pius XI designated the shrine a Basilica
Minor.
Sources include:
 | "Op zaterdag 28 April was het wee," Vlaamse Vereniging Cardiale Revalidatie en Preventie, www.carep.be/scherpenheuvel.htm (photo) |
| Robert Derome, "La médaille du baron du Fouencamps et l'iconographie de la Vierge," www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/r14310/NDdBS |
| Otto Von Reinsberg-Duringsfeld, Traditions et Legends de la Belgique, v. 2, Ferdinand Claassen, Brussels, 1870, classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/reinsberg_duringsfeld_baron/traditions_belgique_t2/Traditions_belgique_t2.doc |
| Shrine's site, Scherpenheuvel, www.scherpenheuvel.be |
Also commemorated this date:
| Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van de Ossenweg, Zoutleeuw, Flemish Brabant, Belgium |