BelgiumOmond, George W. T. (George William Thomson)
History
Belgium
Omond, George W. T. (George William Thomson)
Belgium -- Description and travel
Other miracles wrought through the agency of this relic are recorded.
A child which had been born dead was taken to the shrine, and came to
life after three days. A young girl who had suffered for twenty months
from an issue of blood, and for whom the doctors could do nothing, was
cured by the application of a piece of cloth which had been used to
cover the relic. Another girl who had been paralyzed for a long time,
being carried into the Chapel of St. Basil, was restored to complete
strength the moment she kissed the crystal tube. In December, 1689, a
fire broke out in the Bourg, and threatened to destroy the Hôtel de
Ville; but a priest brought forth the tube containing the relic, and
held it up before the flames, which were instantly extinguished. These
and many other similar miracles, confirmed by the oath of witnesses
and received by the Church at the present day as authentic, make the
relic an object of profound devotion to the people of Bruges and the
peasants of the surrounding country, who go in crowds to bow before it
twice every Friday, when it is exhibited for public worship.
It was nearly lost on several occasions in the days of almost constant
war, and during the French Revolution it was concealed for some years
in the house of a private citizen. The Chapel of St. Basil suffered
from the disturbed condition of the country, and when Napoleon came to
Bruges in 1810 it was such a complete wreck that the magistrates were
on the point of sweeping it away altogether. But Napoleon saved it,
declaring that when he looked on the ruins he fancied himself once more
amongst the antiquities of Egypt, and that to destroy them would be a
crime. Four years after the Battle of Waterloo the relic was brought
out from its hiding-place, and in 1856 the chapel was restored from the
designs of two English architects, William Brangwyn and Thomas Harper
King.[4]
On the first Monday after the 2nd of May every year the town of
Bruges is full of strangers, who have come to witness the celebrated
'Procession of the Holy Blood,' which there is good reason to believe
has taken place annually (except during the French Revolution) for the
last 755 years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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