Mariakapel Achthoven

Daisies for Maria van Achthoven

During World War II through the early '50s, she was black. Who had done that, no one knew. In the 50s, Mary was restored to its former glory in the Maria chapel in Montfoort and processions were still held. Sisters from Montfoort then walked about five kilometers from Montfoort to The Maria Chapel on Achthoven in Montfoort.

Gerard Scholman (80), who took the lead in a major refurbishment in 2019, remembers that. He didn't go there himself, but the neighborhood kids did. "Along the way, they picked daisies for Mary. They would take jam jars with them. That's where they were deployed. Those jars were sometimes there for months."

Miracle of healing

Jan Slot (93), who maintained the chapel for almost forty years until a few years ago, tells how the nuns came to his mother's coffee after such a meeting. Slot has a lot of love for Maria. That's because as a 34/35-year-old he was very ill, from which he has been cured. He tells how he was hit in Lourdes, started crying and his illness was gone all at once. "I had unexplained seizures. The doctor had said, "That boy won't last long." Now I'm still here!" His miraculous healing prompted him to do things completely differently in life. That is why he lovingly cared for the Maria chapel for more than forty years. "I've got everything for her!" Scholman and Slot know that others also took care of her. "Often these were people who had something wrong. They had approached Mary and made a promise." Both remember Mr. Sterk from De Meern. "He had cancer and promised to keep the chapel if he healed. He ended up doing that for a lot of years."

Repair

Slot thinks it's great that the chapel has been completely restored to its former glory in 2019. "He's the man," he says, referring to Gerard Scholman, who pulled that project and still actively maintains the chapel. Due to old age and illness, he himself could no longer do well in recent years, so that it gradually fell into disrepair. "Jan had built a plate along it and iron wire to keep the fence straight," scholman said. "When you see something like that go up, it's close to my heart. So, I started arranging with neighbor boys, fence builders and a lot of others. The joints were bad, there was moss on the fencing and the chapel had risen 20 centimetres." Now that it has been restored to its full glory, the 80-year-old wonders what the future will bring. "It's in top condition. We'll have to see what that will be like 50 years from now. Slot never knew anything other than that the chapel was there. "The chapel was finished in 1937."

Reminder

How it was possible that Maria was temporarily black in the war years until the early 50s remains a mystery to both. Scholman remembers that it was done very neatly. "On the rack in front of it that was aluminum colored, no drip had been tampered with. Would the Germans have done it or the people who no longer believed?" He can understand that there are also believers who believe that the statue of Mary became black, because of the dark, negative energy in the world at that time. "We'll never find out." He still drives past it almost daily: "I ask Maria if she can do well. When I come back, I thank her." If he went the other way, he sometimes forgot. "In this sense, the Maria Chapel is also a reminder for daily prayer."

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