Day 2 of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the Federal Republic of Germany concluded
with a sunset vigil of prayer at an iconic Marian Shrine that once stood behind the
Iron Curtain. Veronica Scarsbrick is in Germany with the Pope and sends us this report:
A
cross, cut from a section of a former barbed wire border fence. That was the symbolic
gift Benedict XVI received on Friday afternoon at a Marian Shrine in Eichsfeld,
a region 80 kilometres north of Erfurt.
The Pope was in this remote rural
area in former Eastern Germany which until 1989 was behind the iron curtain visiting
the Pilgrim’s Chapel the Wallfahrtskapelle at Etzselbach , a Marian shrine where people
kept the faith alive during the harsh years of the communist regime and where as
the Bishop of Erfurt diocese, Joachim Wanke remarked there were for decades mutually
hostile models of society.
And when the Pope arrived here on Friday afternoon
he himself remarked how: “during two godless dictatorships, which sought to deprive
the people of their ancestral faith, the inhabitants here were in no doubt that in
this shrine an open door and a place of inner peace was to be found.”
The Holy
Father was here to pray together with the faithful, some 90.000 of them, some of whom
no doubt personally witnessed that dark chapter in the history of Germany. To thank
Mary, he said with you “here in the beloved quiet vale”, as the pilgrims’ hymn says,
“under the old lime trees”, where Mary gives us security and new strength. And they
came in great numbers, 90.000 of them and there was music.
The theme of Benedict
XVI’s visit to his homeland , “Where God is, there is the future” seemed to take
on a special meaning here. As Pope Benedict himself highlighted when he said: “when
we allow God’s love to influence the whole of our lives, then heaven stands open.”
It
was a prayerful moment as he presided over Marian vespers in the open air where nearby
this elegant half timbered red neo- gothic chapel with an unusual ridge turret nestling
in a remote and leafy wood.
A chapel built in 1801 and consecrated in 1898
, to replace a smaller more ancient one which like all Marian shrines has its popular
beliefs . Among these the seeking of miraculous healing through the intercession of
Our Lady of Sorrows , by wiping the face of a wooden statue depicting her dressed
in blue red as she holds the lifeless body of her Son Christ in her arms. An image
reproduced in the commemorative medal of this Apostolic journey to Germany.
In
this shrine linked to a legend going back to the 16th century when it seems cart
horses used to obstinately refused to move from this place where a statue of Our
Lady was eventually discovered in the ground here.
No surprise then that
among the four annual pilgrimage groups that make their way here each year, the most
A cross, cut from a section of a former barbed wire border fence. That was the symbolic
gift Benedict XVI received on Friday afternoon at a Marian Shrine in Eichsfeld,
a region 80 kilometres north of Erfurt.
The Pope was in this remote rural
area in former Eastern Germany which until 1989 was behind the iron curtain visiting
the Pilgrim’s Chapel the Wallfahrtskapelle at Etzselbach , a Marian shrine where
people kept the faith alive during the harsh years of the communist regime and where
as the Bishop of Erfurt diocese, Joachim Wanke remarked there were for decades mutually
hostile models of society.
And when the Pope arrived here on Friday afternoon
he himself remarked how: “During two godless dictatorships, which sought to deprive
the people of their ancestral faith, the inhabitants here were in no doubt that in
this shrine an open door and a place of inner peace was to be found”.
The Holy
Father was here to pray together with the faithful, some some of whom no doubt personally
witnessed that dark chapter in the history of Germany. To thank Mary, he said with
you “Here in the beloved quiet vale”, as the pilgrims’ hymn says, “under the old
lime trees”, where Mary gives us security and new strength. And they came in great
numbers, 90.000 of them and there was music.
The theme of Benedict XVI’s
visit to his homeland , “Where God is, there is the future” seemed to take on a special
meaning here. As Pope Benedict himself highlighted when he said: “when we allow God’s
love to influence the whole of our lives, then heaven stands open.”
It was
a prayerful moment as he presided over Marian vespers in the open air where nearby
this elegant half timbered red neo- gothic chapel with an unusual ridge turret.
A chapel built in 1801 and consecrated in 1898 , to replace a smaller more
ancient one which like all Marian shrines has its popular beliefs . Among these the
seeking of miraculous healing through the intercession of Our Lady of Sorrows , by
wiping the face of a wooden statue depicting her dressed in blue red as she holds
the lifeless body of her Son Christ in her arms. An image reproduced in the commemorative
medal of this Apostolic journey to Germany.
In this shrine linked to a legend
going back to the 16th century when it seems cart horses used to obstinately refuse
to move from this place where a statue of Our Lady was eventually discovered in
the ground it’s no surprise then that among the four annual pilgrimage groups that
make their way here each year, the most striking is one on horseback, the 'Pferdewallfahrt'
. Hard to imagine hundreds of horses within the walls of the chapel awaiting their
blessing .
When Benedict XVI left this place of pilgrimage the pilgrims stayed
on some buying postcards welcoming the Pope to Etzselbach. Depicting him together
with the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Wallfahrtskapelle and a map of Thuringia
. Thuringia, in former Eastern Germany a place where as I said people kept the faith
alive. Listen: