Image of grace Bökenförde
The miraculous image in the church of St. Dionysius Bökenförde in Lippstadt , North Rhine-Westphalia , is a Romanesque seated Madonna , whose creator and origin are unknown. The history of the linden wood Madonna , dating from the 12th century, has been adapted and changed to reflect contemporary tastes, as evidenced by various paintings that were discovered by the restorer.
description
In its long history, the Romanesque miraculous image was occasionally adapted and changed to suit contemporary tastes. Various paintings discovered by the restorer testify to this. The two heads came from restoration measures at the beginning of the 20th century. At that time an attempt was made to preserve the shape of the miraculous image with strips of linen, putty, nails, wood and stones. Due to dry rot and woodworm infestation, it was in such a bad condition in the 1930s that the parish decided in 1938 to have a new statue of Mary made from oak and to keep the old miraculous image in it. When Pastor Walter Pöppe began a radical church renovation after its introduction in 1960 and examined the miraculous image more closely, he discovered the enclosed image. The torso was completely redesigned in 1961 by a restorer with the aim of restoring the medieval figure and equipped with modern ingredients such as a throne and rock crystals. The two crowns, the cross of the globe and the scepter were also made anew. The new miraculous image shows the typical Romanesque type of Madonna of the enthroned Mother of God with the baby Jesus. Mary as the exalted mother of the divine child holds the globe herself in her right hand. She appears as a queen and at the same time as a mother. The baby Jesus points to the globe with three fingers of the right hand. The restorer took over this detail from the wall relief around 1730, which hangs on a pillar in the Lady Chapel and is the oldest representation of the miraculous image.
The history of Marian veneration and pilgrimage
From the beginnings of Marian devotion to its decline in the 17th century.
The Bökenförder St. Dionysius Church houses her most valuable treasure with the miraculous image of the mother of divine grace. Due to the lack of sources, it is unclear since when the image of grace has been in the Bökenförder Church. A legend recorded in the parish chronicle reports that "in ancient times" a shepherd saw an image of Our Lady floating over the water of a well. After he had reported it to the local priest, he was convinced of it and the "Madonna's portrait" was brought to the Bökenförder church in a solemn procession. It is well known that legends should be viewed with caution. And in this regard, the current research situation gives every reason to do so: In today's Bökenförder Feldflur lies the Brünneken , a small chapel and not far from it, a little hidden under linden trees , a stone fountain, which is venerated as the place of apparition. On a map from 1580 there is already a route coming from Lippstadt and leading towards today's Brünneken as "Our dear women Wegh".
Also from the Bökenförder Warte, coming from Erwitte , a path with the same name led in the direction of today's Brünneken. The place of publication is in the immediate vicinity of the Ussen desert. Like Bökenförde, this village had a church and in the Middle Ages it was also a subsidiary of St. Laurentius in Erwitte. Due to the proximity of the place of apparition to the Ussen church, it is assumed today that the miraculous image was originally kept in the Ussen church. When the village, which was on the border with Lippstadt, was abandoned in the 15th century, the miraculous image was apparently transferred to the Bökenförder Church, which was then expanded to include a Marienkapelle on the north side. The veneration of the figure of Mary in Bökenförde certainly contributed to the fact that in the 16th century the church branch relationship with Erwitte was dissolved and St. Dionysius zu Bökenförde became an independent parish around 1583. By contemporary witness records of the beginning of the 18th century. it is known that there was already a Marian veneration with processions in the 17th century, but this was lost due to the Thirty Years War and the neighboring Protestant Lippstadt . The miraculous image even had to be hidden in the chaos of war to avoid robbery and destruction.
Rediscovery and new beginning of Marian devotion
The worship of Mary and the pilgrimage in Bökenförde were at the beginning of the 18th century. has been received in full, it is documented that only a procession before the feast of Corpus Christi is documented around 1692. It was not until Pastor Johann Heinrich Hesse that the process of procession was revived after he introduced a praise procession for the feast of St. Lawrence in 1712 with the consent of the community as a result of a devastating cattle epidemic in Bökenförde. He revived Marian worship when he rediscovered an old hidden image in 1719 and then claimed that the image in Verne was a fake and the real one was in Bökenförde. With this claim Pastor Hesse referred to the Verner pilgrimage tradition, in which it is reported that the Verner image of grace was included in a larger one and has not been seen by anyone since. Hesse therefore assumed that he had found the original miraculous image in his community and was of the opinion that from then on the miraculous image had to be venerated in Bökenförde. For this reason, he put the pilgrimage procession for Bökenförde on the date of the Great Our Lady costume in Verne. The Great Liebfrauentacht zu Verne was of great regional importance, so that the Verner miraculous image was also carried to the neighboring Geseke in Cologne. It can be assumed that believers from the local area went to the pilgrimage to Verne on this day in order to take part in the huge procession and worship.
Pastor Hesse, meanwhile, had stories compiled into miracle reports, which the Paderborn cathedral provost again devalued as "worthless gossip" because he assumed that Pastor Hesse had introduced the procession as a counter-event only out of self-interest. The Dompropst was so angry about the actions of the Bökenförder pastor, because he had also claimed that a plague epidemic had been extinguished by carrying the miraculous image that he asked the Cologne Archbishop and Elector to investigate the events in Bökenförde. The aim should be that the Bökenförder procession be banned on the weekend before the Johannesfest . This tough legal dispute was resolved in 1722 by moving the Bökenförder date to Trinity Sunday. However, the feast of the miraculous image, which Pastor Hesse had introduced in 1719 and which was celebrated on the Sunday before Johannes (June 24th), remained. The number of pilgrims rose sharply in the following years. This is evidenced by numerous mass foundations, votive offerings and donations that the Bökenförder parish received. In 1747 Pastor Reiser founded a vicarie in order to secure permanent support in pastoral care. He also donated an Altar of Mary (BMV / Beata Maria Virginis), in front of which he found his final resting place in the Marienkapelle.
Marian veneration and pilgrimage since the 19th century.
While in 1800 the feast of the miraculous image was still celebrated on a large scale, church life was severely restricted under French rule in the following years. The processions and pilgrimages could no longer take place and were not revived after French rule. The private veneration of the miraculous image remained. So, especially on Saturdays, individual pilgrims from the area came to attend the solemn high mass with the exposure of the Holy of Holies at the Marien Altar. Around the middle of the 19th century. The veneration of Mary experienced further impetus, but was mostly limited - apart from individual pilgrims - to the Bökenförder population. Numerous holy houses were built in 1860 in the village and in the field. The plot of land on which the fountain and chapel are located today and is called the Brünneken was created around 1864. The construction of the chapel should also fall during this period.
The pilgrimage was only revitalized under Pastor Sondermann, who worked in Bökenförde between 1922 and 1932. He worked up the history of the miraculous image and published a devotional book in 1925. In addition, he successfully promoted the once miraculous image in the area. The first pilgrimage procession came from the neighboring Western Kotten with 300 believers on June 28, 1924. In the same year, pilgrimages from Lippstadt, Esbeck, Hoinkhausen, Berge and Salzkotten followed. Pastor Otto Schelle from the St. Elisabeth Church in Lippstadt introduced the dean's pilgrimage in 1934, which to this day leads numerous men from the Lippstadt dean's office to the Brünneken for a procession by bike or car on Whit Monday. The large number of pilgrims in the 1930s led to considerations to build a much larger building instead of the previous chapel. However, the plans were not implemented. The Brünneken is still a station for believers, individual pilgrims or groups who set out from their communities to make a pilgrimage to the place of apparition of the Mother of Divine Graces.
About miracles and healings in Bökenförde
The witness statements and miracle reports from Bökenförde collected by Pastor Hesse in the context of the legal dispute were recorded by a notary and are still preserved. The oldest protocol is from the year 1720. In that year the pastor Heinrich Hesse had witnesses from Bökenförde and the surrounding area take an oath from the apostolic notary Caspar Theodor Stork. All witnesses assured that "many wonderful answers to prayer have taken place with our image of grace, as they saw it for themselves or heard from their parents and other reliable persons". A further survey on May 30, 1721 produced a similar result, but now there is express mention of an image of Our Lady. In a notarized protocol, Annen Rocker from Störmede recorded her statement that she was blind, had heard of the miracles at the Bökenförde image and went to church in Bökenförde every day. Then she regained her eyesight. In the same year, the notary Loismann stated that ten witnesses from Bökenförde and Erwitte testified that the Bökenförde miraculous image was miraculous ago and is said to have helped locals and strangers:
"[...] through the prayer of the Mother of God, heard by Almighty God, that miraculously the sick became well, the lame walked and the blind saw."
Another witness stated that the miraculous image was once worn by the von Hörde and von Ense in processions. A Catholic woman from Lippstadt told the sexton Kerckhoff in 1724 that she had been cured and freed every hour from an “incurable disease” through the intercession of the Mother of God at the miraculous image. In 1723 a woman came with her “old” son and daughter, who came from the Meerhof in Paderborn, and reported to the sexton that she had “had no rest in her house within four years”. After hearing about Bökenförde and coming here, she was wonderfully healed. Pastor Conrad Bernhard Reiser also notarized miracle reports of healings during his tenure in Bökenförde (1730–1757). In August 1740 a girl from Westernkotten, with the house name Joannknecht, was brought to the miraculous image eight to nine times by her mother, whereupon the girl regained her sight. Two children from Erwitte, who had lost their faces due to the children's leaves, have regained their faces after they “got engaged, vowed and worshiped after this place of grace”. In 1741 a woman from Osnabrück was healed with “abhorrent body damage”. In the same year, the Wineken couple from Langeneicke brought a daughter who had lost her “limb health” to Bökenförde. At the eighth visit to the image of grace, she was healed.
Even a Protestant mother (Mrs. Griesen) from Langeneicke was helped. She had an eighteen-year-old daughter who was plagued by serious illness and fear of death. The pastors in Langeneicke Weyer (pastor) and Wilhelm (vicar) have “saddened this person many times over”. Reiser, however, had "consoled her and advised her to bring her daughter to the image of grace". After receiving Holy Communion, there was immediate improvement. Also in 1741 the eye disease of the six-year-old daughter of Anna Margaretha Wittgen from Berenbrock was healed. Another notarial record from 1746 states that someone even saw a burning light once and another witness saw it several times. With the image of grace, it is said, miracles have occurred since ancient times: the sick got well, the lame walked, the blind see. It also says that about 38 years ago (around 1708) Johann Everhardt Schrothauß, a native of Eikeloh, came back from Hungary. He came to the image to keep his vow. He was captured and in slavery by the Turks. In this hopeless situation he asked for help on the image of grace. He promised that when he was saved from captivity, he would give thanks in front of the image of Our Lady. As a result, he and his comrades would have been “miraculously” freed from slavery and would have set out to keep his promise. At the miraculous image he then thanked them and took off the locks (chains), then he left for his regiment. According to reports, two miracles also occurred in 1719. Catharina Schrop was healed and no longer needed to limp, her son got his face back. Pastor Reiser stated in his chronicle:
“In my priestly honor, I must say and testify to the fact that during my time at this place of grace it often happened that blind, sick and otherwise fearful souls achieved miraculous and supernatural salvation through their vows, gifts and minor sacrifices of body and soul ... "
There is also an undated transcript from Pastor Reiser's parish chronicle, which records:
“In my priestly honor, I must say and testify to the fact that during my time at this place of grace it often happened that blind, sick and otherwise fearful souls achieved miraculous and supernatural salvation through their vows, prayers and small sacrifices of body and soul, especially if the people pietatis causa (out of piety) pray here for nine Saturdays, while Jesus Christ, the Son of God, rests in the virgin body for nine months. He closes the chronicle with the words: Well then, mother of divine grace, you protect us against the enemy and receive us in the hour of death, and after this misery show us Jesus, the blessed fruit of your body. "
Another pastor commented on these reports:
"I am firmly convinced that these and many other answers to prayer have taken place in our image of grace, but that they have not become widespread and known as in other places of grace."
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dirk Ruholl (ed.): Bökenförde. A village to Gieseler and Pöppelsche. Village history from 1005-2005. Pp. 253-254.
- ↑ See Kath. Kirchengemeinde (ed.): Mother of divine grace. The Bökenförder image of grace. Bökenförde 2016. pp. 5–18.
literature
- Dirk Ruholl (ed.): Bökenförde. A village to Gieseler and Pöppelsche. Village history from 1005-2005.
- Dirk Ruholl: Image of grace Bökenförde and history of the processional system. Unpublished manuscript. Archive of the home association Bökenförde.
- Heimatverein Bökenförde (ed.): Wayside shrines, holy houses and wayside crosses in and around Bökenförde. Paderborn 2000. p. 22.