The Silent Procession
He and a friend Carel Elsenburg decided in 1881 to follow this route again as a devotional exercise. Their idea was taken up enthusiastically and within a few years this private initiative had become a fast-growing movement, and they formed the Company of the Silent Procession. Soon more and more Catholics were coming in from the country to participate in the annual Silent Procession in Amsterdam. The Feast of the Miracle begins every year on the Wednesday following 12 March, and from Wednesday to Saturday festive masses are celebrated each day in the chapel of the Beguinage. But the greatest manifestation of each year is always the Silent Procession, held in the early hours of the Sunday morning following the Wednesday after 12 March.
Buses bring pilgrims to the centre of Amsterdam from all over the country. First they celebrate Holy Mass at one of the parish
It lasts nearly an hour and takes place somewhere between midnight and four a.m. on the Sunday. Nowadays about 8,000 people, from different Christian denominations, walk in this procession.
Secretaryship of the ‘Company of the Silent Procession’: Zandvoorterweg 78 |
NL / EN
The major impetus for the renewed worship of the Miracle of Amsterdam was the discovery by one Joseph Lousbergh of a document dated 16 December 1651 in which the medieval processions of the Miracle were described.
The procession is performed in complete silence without public prayers or songs, without ecclesiastical vestments or other religious objects. Hence its name, Silent Procession.
