Bruges and West FlandersOmond, George W. T. (George William Thomson)
History
Bruges and West Flanders
Omond, George W. T. (George William Thomson)
Bruges (Belgium) -- Description and travel; Flanders -- 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 Hotel 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.[*]
[Footnote *: Gilliat-Smith, _The Story of Bruges_, p. 103.]
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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