Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Mary - Namur

Located at the back of the Institut Notre-Dame the neo-Gothic chapel of the Sacred Heart of Mary.

The brick and limestone chapel was erected in 1852 on the cemetery of Julie Billiart, Mother Superior of the Sisters of Notre-Dame who arrived in Namur in 1807 and founded a school for the poor, now the Institut Notre-Dame.

Julie Billiart died on April 8, 1816 . After she was first buried in the cemetery of the city of Namur, her body was transferred to the mother house where there is a vault at the back of the garden with a small oratory above it, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Mary.

The chapel was built in 1852. In 1906, for Julie's beatification, a gilded and silver-plated copper shrine containing Julie's remains was made and placed under the altar. In 1907, a statue of Mother Julie , in white Carrara marble, the work of the sculptor Tripisciano, is placed on the site of Julie's grave.

During the Second World War the chapel was damaged by bombing. A complete restoration of the chapel follows thanks to the generosity of homes in America, especially in California. Two small sacristies were added to either side of the outbuilding and two pointed windows were pierced above the graves.

The neo-Gothic oak altar contains the relics of the holy martyrs: Saint Amand and Saint Clemens. After Mother Julie's beatification in 1906, the shrine was placed under the altar. On the panels that frame it, the oak statuettes of great founders of orders evoke the life of the Church in which Julie's work takes place.

In 2012, the foundation of the heritage center of the Sisters of Notre-Dame in Namur followed and the transfer of the shrine of Saint Juliet and the bodies of Mother Saint Joseph and Mother Ignatius to the choir and sacristy of the main church of the mother house . The altar, the oak statues and the Carrara marble statue will also be moved.

Willem Vandenameele