The Miracle of Amsterdam

Last week I went to Amsterdam for the afternoon to do some research on a fascinating legend from the fourteenth century known as the "Miracle of Amsterdam."  I've been to the city several times before, and each time I've tried to visit the imposing baroque church of St. Nicholas, patron of Amsterdam.  It always seems to be closed, but this time, I was in luck!

St. Nicholas is right next to the train station, and the silence and reverence inside the church makes a wonderful respite from the noisy crowds of people and the continual traffic jams of buses and bicycles.  After leaving the church, I made my way to the Begijnhof, the city's historic Beguinage.  This is the door leading into the Beguinage with a carving above depicting St. Ursula protecting her saintly companions in the folds of her cloak.

A "Beguinage" is a community of beguines.  Beguines were women who lived and dressed like nuns.  This statue gives a sense of their traditional habit.  The difference between a beguine and a nun is that beguines were not cloistered--they didn't have to stay inside a convent, and they did not take vows.  Beguinages began to be very popular in Holland and Belgium during the late Middle Ages.  The last beguine living in the Amsterdam Beguinage died in 1970.  I took these pictures last May when I was in Amsterdam, before I saw the "no photography" sign on the fence!  That's why it doesn't look like it's January.

Today, the city rents the beguines' old homes to women from Amsterdam who need a place to stay.  A statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus stands on the lawn, surrounded by the white fences enclosing the residents' gardens.

One of the "houses" in the Beguinage is open to visitors, and walking inside you may be surprised to find yourself in a chapel!  When Amsterdam converted to Calvinism in 1578, Catholic mass was prohibited, and the city's Catholics had to hold underground services in hidden churches.  You can still see a number of these in Amsterdam today.  The outside looks deceptively like a house ... at least to the city magistrates!  Actually, the city officials were well aware of the Beguinage and tolerated it during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Devotion to the "Miracle of Amsterdam" used to be centered in a special chapel built to accommodate the pilgrims, but after the shrine was seized by the Protestant city council, the cult moved to the Beguinage's "hidden" church.  Here is the legend of the Miracle of Amsterdam: In 1345, a gravely ill man called for a priest to administer the Last Rites before he died (see the picture on the left).  As the most important part of the Last Rites, the priest gave the Viaticum--the consecrated Host (bread) of the Sacrament--to the dying man.  Shortly afterward, the man threw up, and his wife emptied the mess into the fire (see the narrative in the picture on the right).

The man had thrown up the Host as well, but to his wife's amazement, the Host did not burn in the fire like ordinary bread.  Instead it hovered among the flames, not even singed.  The miracle of the Host spread throughout the Low Countries.  Each year Amsterdam commemorated the miracle with a procession carrying the consecrated Host through the streets.  The procession was outlawed after the Reformation, but it continued in one form or another, and eventually it morphed into the "Stille Omgang," a silent march petitioning Amsterdam to extend equal rights to Catholics.  Today, religious freedom has long since been enacted in Holland, but the Stille Omgang continues to take place each March.  In the dead of night, people from a variety of religions walk through the streets in silence with candles as an expression of faith.