Chapel of Grace of Altötting

Image: Wikimedia Commons

In the middle of a great square in Bavaria stands a tiny octagonal chapel, built around the year 660 and the oldest Marian shrine in Germany. In 1489, a three-year-old boy drowned in the stream nearby; his mother carried his body to the dark little chapel, laid it before the carved image of the Virgin, and prayed with the gathered neighbors until the child stirred back to life. From that day Altötting has been the heart of Bavaria: the Black Madonna, a small linden-wood Virgin darkened by centuries of candle smoke, stands robed in gold amid a silver forest of votive offerings, the covered walkway outside is papered with painted tablets of thanks, and silver urns along the walls hold the hearts of Bavaria's kings, given to Mary in death. Saint Conrad of Parzham kept the door of the Capuchin friary here for forty years, answering every ring of the bell as if it were Christ. John Paul II came in 1980; Benedict XVI, born a few kilometers away and a pilgrim here since childhood, returned as pope in 2006. Half a million pilgrims a year still walk in, many the whole way on foot.