Hail procession

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Hail procession in Ostbevern 1992

Hail processions as a special form of petition processions are Christian corridors in which people pray for a good harvest and the absence of damage, especially damage caused by hail . Unlike the ringing of the weather , which is supposed to serve as an apotropaic act to avert immediate danger, the hail procession is a recurring rite in the year. In some places a vow after hail damage can be proven as the origin for the local hail procession. In Catholic parishes in the Münsterland and southern Germany, the hail processions are an integral part of church life to this day.

The names for the procession vary from region to region. In Bavaria one speaks of a " shower procession" on " shower Friday ". In some places the terms "hail celebration" or "procession on hail holiday", field or hall procession or "large procession" are common. The term “great procession” refers to the fact that the Corpus Christi procession took place in the village and the great procession took a much longer route outside of the village.

history

Origins

In ancient times , storms were viewed in many cultures as punishment by the gods for human crimes . In order to avert them, sacrificial rites sought to favor the supernatural powers, in order to bring about good weather for good growth and a rich harvest and to keep the fields away from damage. Luscious weather in the growing season from June to September decided whether there would still be enough supplies for humans and animals in late winter and next spring, or whether hunger and thus disease, death and poverty were to be feared. Until hail insurance companies were founded in the 19th century, hailstorms could ruin farms and families.

Petition processions were already known in the early Church. In April 399, St. John Chrysostom ordered a procession (called " litanies " because they were accompanied by pleading supplication and the chanting of the All Saints' litany , in which each invocation was repeated) because of the persistent rain . The "small supplication processions" on the three supplication days before Ascension Day were introduced in 470 by the Bishop of Vienne (Isère) , Mamertus (one of the ice saints ) and initially spread in Gaul; in Rome they found under Pope Leo III. (795-816) entrance.

Development in the early modern period

The local origin and the development of the hail procession that was widespread in Germany during the Baroque period has not been researched, Germanic roots are controversial.

According to the traditional researcher Manfred Becker-Huberti , the hail processions and other corridors were “often held to the exclusion of the pastor” and “turned into wild actions with plenty of alcohol”. Such processions began after midnight and lasted for many hours. The clergy was either not involved at all or only occasionally, as short sermons were given at the stations on the way or the priest met the procession on the last part with the Holy of Holies .

In Bösensell , the day before the feast of John the Baptist in 1662, a corridor ride lasted from 4 in the morning to around 2 pm; Pastor Johannes Beckhaus reported during an episcopal visitation that during this processio incongrua (“disordered procession”) the Holy of Holies was not shown the necessary reverence. In Marl , the local riflemen received a ton of beer as compensation for their police-like assistance and their efforts in the hail procession in the 18th century.

In 1616, the Prince-Bishop of Münster, Christoph Bernhard von Galen , ordered the merging of the Corpus Christi procession and the hail celebration, also in order to express the worship of the Eucharist by celebrating the Holy Mass more often and not by extensive processions. He implemented the intention of the Council of Trent (1545–1563) to “fight the secular influences in the veneration of saints and the processions and to fix the cult as a whole to the extent desired by the council” and the “superstition that is alive in agrarian societies to push back the hope for help through supernatural appearances in pseudo-religious areas ”.

Prince-Bishop Bernhard's instructions, however, were followed only hesitantly. In 1662, for example, two processions took place in Ostbevern: a hail celebration on the day after Ascension Day and a second procession on the Friday before the feast of John the Baptist, i.e. not on the feast of Corpus Christi. In Lippramsdorf the annual procession in the octave of Corpus Christi 1662 was popularly called ("vulgo") hail celebration according to Pastor Wüllen.

However, processions and pilgrimages in the Münsterland increased again by the end of the 18th century. With the emergence of the Catholic Enlightenment around this time, the bishop and the local clergy rationalized forms of devotion, restricting pilgrimages and processions in terms of number, duration and design, as experience teaches that pilgrimages “both economically and physically as well as religiously and moral have a detrimental and pernicious effect on some pilgrims and cause various nonsense and nuisance ”. In many places these restrictions happened against the will of the church people. With several decrees, the processions in the parishes were limited to one, only exceptionally two; the main procession was supposed to be held in every parish on Corpus Christi day, and there was also another procession "to avert the fire, hailstorm, bad wax, etc." allowed to take place on the third Sunday after the Trinity .

In the Eifel in the 17th and 18th centuries, the hail procession was banned in some places, and in 1830 the Trier bishop v. Hommer suggests that the procession to the town fountain in Hillesheim (Eifel) on Vigil Day on St. John's Day, the rest of the three-day Hillesheim hail celebration, should in future be avoided as improper.

After the Reformation, some of the hail processions in Protestant areas were converted into harvest supplication services. Württemberg's King Wilhelm I suggested the public holiday in the famine years 1815 to 1817, which was observed throughout the Evangelical Church in Württemberg - "with hunger soup, sausages and a cold drink" - and continues today as a local community festival, for example in Honhardt .

Appointment and patronage

The period around the summer solstice , which also includes St. John's Day (the solemn festival of the birth of St. John the Baptist ) on June 24th, is the point in time when the grain is ripe, when hailstorms can have particularly serious consequences for the harvest. Therefore, the hail procession is assigned to St. John's Day. In addition to hail, midsummer thunderstorms with lightning strikes and damaging fires were frequent disasters in the village environment, against which people wanted to protect themselves with God's help. The feast of St. Anne , a popular patron saint against thunderstorms, falls on July 27th during the summer dog days .

According to another interpretation, the holy martyrs John and Paul are regarded as weather saints ; on their memorial day on June 26th there were hail processions and shower celebrations.

The "catacomb saint" Donatus von Münstereifel is venerated in the Eifel and in the area around Cologne as a patron against lightning, storms and fire. His relics were given to the Jesuit college in Münstereifel in 1652 , and its festival is on June 30th. As late as 1949, "Donatus masses" were celebrated in some Eifel towns in the summer, perhaps as a replacement for earlier hail processions: Since 1729, the Jesuits had demonized the (Johannes) hail celebration during popular missions and recommended their saint Donatus as the unsurpassable weather patron.

It is therefore not surprising that in the Westphalian Ostbevern , for example, a traditional blessing station for the local hail procession, the fourth, is a statue of Donatus . The other blessing stations were there, next to a floor cross , consecrated to the Mother of God Mary and St. Anna , the patron saint against thunderstorms.

In the Münsterland, the traditional date for the hail processions is usually the second Sunday after Corpus Christi (= third Sunday after Pentecost ).

In the Rhineland, processions on the praying days in the days of Ascension Day also had the character of hail processions; Tuesday was called “Hagelfeyertag” in Opladen , Friday was “Hagelfreitag” in Langenfeld (Rhineland) : “People also pleaded for God's blessing by celebrating 'Hagelfreitag' on the day after Ascension Day with mass, sermon, Procession, vespers and the distribution of bread were celebrated. ”In Ostbevern in the Münsterland region, a“ hail celebration ”is documented on the Friday after Ascension Day in 1662. In the Landshut area, the Friday after Ascension Day with field walks is called " shower Friday ", in Baden the same day was called "hail day".

Current practice

In many places, the hail procession is now a "Eucharistic weather procession " in which the parish walks through the fields, praying and singing. The priest , walking under a canopy , carries the monstrance with the holy of holies . On the way are litanies , the rosary , psalms prayed and other removable songs or sung.

The procession stops at several stations or "(blessing) altars ", mostly corridor chapels (" procession houses ") or corridor crosses , often also called hail crosses, a pericope from the Gospel is recited, intercessions are made and the sacramental blessing is given. Usually the procession takes place after a Holy Mass in the parish church. Alternatively, a votive mass was celebrated in some places to avert hail and storms en route or at the destination. Such celebration of Mass is sometimes referred to as showers official referred so in the Upper Palatinate and in Upper Styria .

Towards the end of the 20th century, a number of hail processions were abandoned, others were converted to "hail celebrations" in the form of an outdoor Holy Mass without a procession, for example in suitable places in the village or at a chapel or the like outside the village. However, they continue to exist in several municipalities, primarily in the Münsterland.

Classification of customs

The hail processions belong to the pia exercitia ( pious exercises ). According to canon law ( Codex Iuris Canonici ) of 1917, only those petitions that were "organized under the leadership of the clergy" were considered processions (approx. 1290 § 1). If there were no clerics present or if they were not in charge, the Congregation of Rites decided that there was no procession.

The ritual Romanum in the version that was valid until the Second Vatican Council provided for prayer orders for “extraordinary processions”, including rain, good weather and storms.

The regulation of the Roman Catholic Church , which has been in force since 1969, leaves it to the local bishops to determine when and in what form regular petition processions take place. In the German-speaking area, the supplication services (with or without a procession) should be preserved where possible and "all essential areas and dangers of present life" should be included in the prayer.

See also

literature

  • Oskar Sengpiel: The importance of the processions for the spiritual play of the Middle Ages in Germany , (= Germanist treatises; Volume 66), (Partly also: Marburg, Univ., Diss., 1932), Breslau 1932, reprint Hildesheim 2001, ISBN 3- 487-06219-4

Web links

  • Regina Doblies: About thunderstorm bells and hail processions (traveling exhibition of the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe ), PDF
  • Herbert Wagner: Hail processions from earlier times in today's Hillesheim deanery , Daun yearbook 1974 [2]

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aimé-Georges Martimort: The other sacraments and the sacramentals. The sanctification of time. Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1965 (Church service. Handbook of Liturgical Science II), p. 264.
  2. ↑ Manfred Becker-Huberti: Lexicon of customs and festivals. Section: Johannes und Paulus (June 26th) Herder-Verlag Freiburg-Basel-Wien 2000, ISBN 3-451-27317-9 , p. 147
  3. ↑ so with the Ascheberger Katharinentracht
  4. ↑ Manfred Becker-Huberti: The Tridentine Reform in the Diocese of Münster under Prince-Bishop Christoph Bernhard v. Galen 1650 to 1678. Münster 1978, p. 299f. 301f.
  5. ^ Parish archives Marl, according to the Marl Citizens' Rifle Guild, “Schützenwesen in Marl”  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bsg-marl-lippe.de  
  6. ↑ J. Niesert (Ed.): Münsterische Urkundensammlung. Coesfeld 1826-1837, Vol. VII p. 76f.
  7. ↑ Manfred Becker-Huberti: The Tridentine Reform in the Diocese of Münster under Prince-Bishop Christoph Bernhard v. Galen 1650 to 1678. Münster 1978, p. 300.
  8. ↑ Manfred Becker-Huberti: The Tridentine Reform in the Diocese of Münster under Prince-Bishop Christoph Bernhard v. Galen 1650 to 1678. Münster 1978, pp. 304f.
  9. ↑ Manfred Becker-Huberti: The Tridentine Reform in the Diocese of Münster under Prince-Bishop Christoph Bernhard v. Galen 1650 to 1678. Münster 1978, pp. 301f; Sources: Episcopal Diocesan Archives Münster: General Vicariate Archive Münster - Cathedral A 56. AR 1662 Ostbevern: f. 33v; Lippramsdorf: f. 16v.
  10. ^ Bishop Kaspar Maximilian Droste zu Vischering by edict on August 4, 1826, quoted in Werner Freitag : Popular and elite piety in the early modern period. Marian pilgrimages in the Principality of Münster. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1991, ISBN 3-506-79572-4 , p. 353f.
  11. ^ Decrees of the Bishop of Münster of March 3, 1829, October 9, 1829, December 22, 1829 and October 29, 1830; see: Werner Freitag: Popular and elite piety in the early modern period. Marian pilgrimages in the Principality of Münster. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1991, ISBN 3-506-79572-4 , p. 354.
  12. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Warnecke: The Laurentius admiration and procession in Borghorst. In: Borghorster Heimatblätter 1966.
  13. ^ Diocesan archives Trier, visitation protocol 1830 (sc. Hillesheim). Also: Schiffhauer: The pilgrimage in the Diocese of Trier under Bishop Josef v. Hommer. In: Festschrift for Alois Thomas. Trier 1967. p. 345 ff; Location: Herbert Wagner: Hail processions from earlier times in today's Hillesheim deanery , Daun yearbook 1974 ( Memento of the original from March 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 10, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jahrbuch-daun.de
  14. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from July 21, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. State portal Baden-Württemberg  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.baden-wuerttemberg.de
  15. ↑ Ecumenical Saint Lexicon: http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/BiographienA/Anna.htm
  16. ↑ no longer included in the regional calendar for the German-speaking area
  17. ↑ Biographical-Bibliographical Church Lexicon ( Memento from June 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ↑ Herbert Wagner: Hail processions from earlier times in today's dean's office in Hillesheim (Yearbook Daun 1974, archive link ( memento of the original from March 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ), citing: Nikolaus Kyll: The hail celebration in the old Archdiocese of Trier and its peripheral areas. In: Rheinisches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde, 13./14. Year Bonn 1962/1963, pp. 113-171 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jahrbuch-daun.de
  19. ↑ Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints [1]
  20. ^ Rolf Müller: Upladhin - Opladen. City Chronicle. Opladen 1974, p. 39
  21. ^ Rolf Müller: City history Langenfeld. Langenfeld 1992, page 132, last paragraph; In addition, the proof is given by Müller: Hermann Ludovici: Liber archivarius pastorus Richrathensis pro informatione deserviens , translated text version in the Langenfeld city archive: Hermann Jakob Ludovici, Liber annalum - Weltchronik 1770–1800 , Langenfeld 1992
  22. ↑ Manfred Becker-Huberti: The Tridentine Reform in the Diocese of Münster under Prince-Bishop Christoph Bernhard v. Galen 1650 to 1678. Münster 1978, pp. 301f; Source: Münster diocesan archives: General Vicariate Archive Münster - Cathedral A 56. AR 1662 Ostbevern: f. 33v.
  23. ↑ Manfred Becker-Huberti, Kirchliches Festjahr , accessed on March 11, 2012
  24. ↑ a b Andreas Heinz: Prayer procession . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 2 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1994.
  25. ↑ http://www.heiligkreuz.info/gemeinde/public/inhalt.php?id_artikel=164  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Katholische Kirchengemeinde Heilig Kreuz, Ibbenbüren, accessed on February 25, 2012@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.heiligkreuz.info  
  26. ↑ Herbert Wagner: Hail processions from earlier times in today's dean's office Hillesheim (Yearbook Daun 1974, archive link ( Memento of the original from March 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jahrbuch-daun.de
  27. ↑ Explanation on www.orf.at
  28. ↑ Report on a typical showroom
  29. ↑ Aimé-Georges Martimort: General Introduction. Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1963 (Church service. Handbook of Liturgy I), p. 9f. - Aimé-Georges Martimort: The other sacraments and the sacramentals. The sanctification of time. Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1965 (Church service. Handbook of Liturgical Science II), p. 176f.
  30. ↑ Sacrorum Congregation Rituum 3217 of August 20, 1870; see Aimé-Georges Martimort: The other sacraments and the sacramentals. The sanctification of time. Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1965 (Church service. Handbook of Liturgy II), p. 169f.
  31. ↑ Aimé-Georges Martimort: The other sacraments and the sacramentals. The sanctification of time. Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1965 (Church service. Handbook of Liturgical Science II), p. 176f.