The reading
How it began
In 1447 a Host taken from a church was discarded, the local account says, in a field near Ettiswil. The place was identified by a sign the villagers took as light, or as a spot that would not behave like the rest of the meadow. They built a chapel. The pilgrimage of the Blessed Sacrament at Ettiswil is that chapel’s reason for existing.
The day itself
Switzerland’s entry in the classical list is small beside Italy’s. It is not small to the village. The object of the walk is the Sacrament and the memory of a theft, not a fragment of heart tissue.
Reading
How to read Ettiswil
Throwing a Host away is the opposite of adoration. Ettiswil’s chapel is a village refusing to let the opposite be the last word in a field.
Pray this
Prayers that sit with the story
Church status
How this sign has been received
Long veneration
Local pilgrimage chapel from the fifteenth century.
Sources
- Pilgrimage chapel of Ettiswil
For the classroom
Ettiswil (1447, Ettiswil, Lucerne). Grade in this encyclopedia: Long veneration. A stolen Host, thrown into a field, marked the place. A chapel rose. Ettiswil’s pilgrimage of the Blessed Sacrament comes from that theft.
