Chapel of the Beech Tree

Beautifully renovated chapel.
In the past, a wooden statue of Mary would have stood here in the hollow of a beech tree. One day, an old crippled shepherd noticed that the statue had disappeared. On the feast day of Our Lady Visitation in 1640, an alabaster statue of Our Lady, which had been venerated in the church since time immemorial, was processionally transferred to the enlarged hollow in the tree. Pilgrims from far and wide flocked and miraculous healings took place. Father Neven decided to spend the money sacrificed to the sanctuary and a generous gift from the Count Ernest van der Marck on building a chapel. On the feast day of Our Lady Visitation (visit of Our Lady to Elisabeth) in the year 1641, the Reverend the Lord Land Dean dedicated the first mass in the chapel with great solemnity. Pious lore still tells that the beech, which had stored the statue for a while, began to languish after the statue was removed. The people took pieces of wood from the tree home as a relic and Father Neven even had statues of Mary carved from the wood of the miraculous tree. After new donations, a room was added in 1650. This housed a hermit who guarded the chapel and kept it in order. In 1742 the portal was added. A second chamber followed in 1778. Chapel and wooded surroundings have been protected as monuments and landscapes since 12 July 1951. The greatest treasure of the chapel is undoubtedly the alabaster statue of Our Lady with Child (ca. 1425).

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