Meeting with Saint Anne – report pilgrim Susanne Rasing

Book of Hours submission: Pilgrims can contribute, linked to one of the 34 route maps. A selection of these will be compiled into a new pilgrim’s book of hours. Read more here .

Pilgrim Susanne Rasing shared her thoughts with us, in line with route map 27, Hernen – Bergharen.

No sooner said than done: Let’s go, left leg by right leg, take a nice deep breath. Delicious. I really feel like a globetrotter. With your backpack on your back, in your t-shirt, sun on your body. I feel that the inside of my chest has more space. I experience this every time I’m walking with my backpack. I feel that this thought puts a smile on my face. And I walk on.
Slight right and then straight ahead again. I stand still. No, but. This church is beautifully stately. How graceful. So beautiful between the trees. I look at my map again and see that I also have to go that way according to the route. Great, I have to see that church. I’m so drawn to it.

And there I am, in front of the main entrance of the church. I feel submissive, impressed by the serenity of the building. What is it about this church that is so different from all the other churches I’ve seen? I walk inside, towards the statue of the Virgin Mary. No, it’s not Mary. It’s Anna. Anna? Oh, the mother of Mary. And I sit down on a bench. Lean my back against the wall. Full of wonder.

I stare in silence in front of me. My thoughts go back to Santiago de Compostela, to my shoelace with the pigeon ring in which my bib number is engraved. I had it blessed on the women’s side of the cathedral. If you ask me why I did it that way, I can’t give you an answer. I followed my intuition. At that moment I was allowed to experience, sitting with my legs pulled up, my eyes closed: such beautiful white bright light in and around me. I open my eyes. What I’m looking at just looks like always. I close my eyes again. There it is again, bright white light in and around me. So this is the reason I deviated from the route, an encounter with Saint Anne. Everything coincides and seems connected.