September 18: OUR LADY OF SMELCEM

Our Lady of Smelcem, in Flanders, was made conspicuous by shepherds observing that their sheep bent their knees before the image.  This occasioned Baldwin, surnamed Fair Beard, to choose this place to build a church in thanksgiving for having been cured from a malady from which he had suffered for seventeen years.

According to tradition, one day long ago in the 10th century there were two shepherd boys out tending their flock in a field of Flanders when one of the boys noticed that some of the sheep seemed to be acting strangely.

"There must be something wrong at the end of the field over there," observed the shepherd boy to his companion.

"Why, what makes you think so?" questioned the second lad.

"The sheep topple forward.  Look!  Let's go see."

Carefully the boys made their way through the grazing flock searching the ground as they neared the place.  They watched.  Each sheep coming to a certain spot went down, front legs bent and nose touching the ground, then gracefully and quickly it arose and continued to graze.  Suddenly the boys saw a small statue of the Virgin in the niche of the rocks marking the end of the pasture.  This is the story of Our Lady of Smelcem.

From the Woman in Orbit - A Timeless Marian Treasure Compiled By Sr. Manetta Lamberty, S.C.C.

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