Ring-around-the-rosy

Grotto of the Maria Altbronn Chapel


There are forces that don’t want us to be saved.
They act for their own sake…
If we are saved, there will be no sacrifices,
no animals offered to the forces.

Yes, they made sacrifices to the animals.
They were alive when they offered them,
and then they died.

They offered us dead to God,
And we lived.

Gospel of Philip[1]

The chapel known as Maria Altbronn[2] was once surrounded by a thriving village.

Towards the end of the 14th century most of the villagers died of the bubonic plague which offered up more than half of the population in a dark holocaust of torment and death. The village would never be mentioned again. Only the shrine, chapel and two houses remain today; the rest was most likely burnt, disassembled and moved to nearby towns.

During this period (the plague of 1397) the local bishop made a solemn pilgrimage to Maria Altbronn, dedicating himself to contemplate and act on the mysteries of Our Lady, “Purest” Queen of Heaven.[3] The consecration of the chapel as a focal point of Marian devotion marked a turning point in the life of Altbronn, which still serves as a well-endowed but little known pearl on the necklace of Alsatian pilgrimage routes

It is a strange place of historical and spiritual contrasts that holds the terrible power and lingering memories of death in one hand, and the resilience and triumph of life in the other. The flowers that grow all around the shrine of Our Lady are rooted in soil that is rich from the darkness of the past.

The fields, flowers, chapel and fountain of Maria Altbronn reminded me of the “Ring around the rosy” rhyme, which is probably one of the first songs that a native English speaker learns. I did not learn until I was much older that this children’s song echoed the “ring around the rosy” skin of the plague afflicted; the pocket full of posies meant to ward off disease…that the “ashes, ashes…we all fall down” is a common memory of the genocide of ignorance which led to mountains of burning bodies.

What once fed the forces of pain and sacrifice has been transformed into an innocent children’s song. ‘They offered us dead to God, and we lived.’

Notes:

For more information on the Chapel of Maria Altbronn, visit the Bulletin of the Community of Molsheim-Mutzig, Jan 2007 (French only)

[1] The Gnostic Bible, pp. 262-63

[2] “Altbronn” is archaic Alsatian meaning “old fountain,” which was first mentioned officially in 737 CE as part of the inheritance of the son of the duke of Alsace which was sold to the brothers of Wissembourg Abbey, though the fountain and a shrine were no doubt in the same location before that date.

[3] Archepiscopal inscription of 1397 dedicates the site to “la Reine Toute Pure”, or the “Purest Queen.”