Chapel Our Lady of Assistance and Saint Philomena - Hechtel-eksel

This chapel, dedicated to Our Lady of Assistance and Saint Philomena, is located on the village square in Hechtel-eksel.

The chapel, which was built on municipal land, probably dates from the middle of the 19th century.

Mothers used to come on pilgrimage for their crying children.

Inside are a renewed wooden altar with a painting depicting the Ghent Altarpiece; two fairly recent stained glass windows with Saint Philomena and Our Lady of Assistance, made by Mathijs André.

Philomena is said to have been the daughter of a royal couple from the Greek province of Macedonia. Her parents were converted to Christ when a Christian doctor promised them that God would give them a daughter.

Because she was so beautiful, the Roman emperor, Diocletian (284-305), wanted her to be his wife. But she had decided to give her whole life to Christ and to remain a virgin . This angered the Emperor. He had her thrown into the Tiber with an anchor around her neck. But miraculously she made it out alive: an angel cut the ropes. Then her executioners would have shot three glowing arrows at her. But they didn't kill her either; on the contrary, in the middle of their flight , the projectiles turned around and headed straight for those they had fired. In the end she would be beheaded , as had happened to so many martyrs in the early Christian era.

As early as 1961, well before the revision of the calendar of saints by the Second Vatican Council of 1970, she was removed from the general calendar of saints because it is historically very uncertain whether she ever really existed.

She is venerated as the patron saint of mothers-to-be, tortured and prisoners.

Willem Vandenameele