Visit to Koekelberg Basilica in Belgium

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. Asher has a love of history so his dispatches are often full of historical details.

"On September 3, I went to Brussels to visit Guido Ossemann, someone who has been a longtime friend of the Children's Rosary and who helped to translate the Children's Rosary book into French and German. He had proposed the visit and offered to drive down to Brussels from Eupen to visit me. He was so kind so as to give a whole day to take me around and welcome me to Belgium. I took the train from Paris North station and arrived in the Belgian capital within an hour and a half. 

A few things stood out to me about the city. First of all, the weather was a bit more severe than in Paris, with colder and windier conditions than I had been privy to in the French capital. Secondly, the bilingual nature of the city was quite evident, with some billboards and ads in French and some in Flemish. Signs and restaurant names were in both languages. One humorous observation is that Belgian car garages are not to be taken lightly. Guido and I got stuck in more than one before the day finished, and it is quite easy to end up driving in circles for fifteen to twenty minutes with no obvious way out of the Minotaur's labyrinth. We ran across some other motorists just leaving their vehicle, but when we stopped to ask the for the exit, they said they also had no idea how they had gotten in or how to get out. There were signs in Flemish and French marked "Sortie" and "Uitgang," but when we followed those, we finished by going in circles. Then Guido noticed some signs in English marked "Exit," and after following those for a while, they eventually led out. I always rather thought the design of a parking garage was rather simple, but not so in Belgium.

Once I arrived and after we had had some lunch, we walked through the Grand-Place, a beautiful square in the center of Brussels that is one of the most iconic features of the city. It was built over a period of six centuries, from the eleventh to the seventeenth. It was severely damaged during the Ninety Years War, and it had to rebuilt after. It includes mostly Baroque architecture, and I was particularly impressed by the large amount of gold there. It has been a hub for the market in Brussels for a long time, and it is clearly the center of the city.

After this, we drove up to the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart. This is a massive church, the fifth largest in the world. It was built throughout much of the twentieth century, beginning in 1905 when King Leopold II laid the first stone and ending in 1970. It is built in Art Deco style with obvious neo-Byzantine influence. 

As the guide explained to us in the church, the king wanted to build a pantheon to honor the great heroes of Belgian history, especially since it was the fiftieth anniversary of their independence. There was not much enthusiasm for this, though, so instead, after visiting the Basilique du Sacre Coeur at Montmartre in Paris, the king decided he would build his own basilica dedicated to the Sacred Heart. The plans originally drawn up were for a neo-Gothic basilica to be built.

The guide went on to say that in the years before the first world war construction of the basilica went on but rather slowly, so much so that by the beginning of the war, only the foundation had been finished. Cardinal Mercier, the archbishop of Mechelen and a great Thomist scholar, resolved publicly during the war to finish the Cathedral once the fighting stopped. 

Nevertheless, times had changed and instead of the neo-Gothic basilica, the plans evolved to include a more modern Art Deco plan. The church was consecrated in the mid-1930s, while it was still being built, and work continued right until the end, only interrupted by the Second World War. 

The proportions of the building really are quite extraordinary, and you can ascend to an overlooking balcony to see just how majestic it is. There are at least four main altars, one behind the other leading to the back of the church. 

There is also perpetual adoration in a chapel off to the side of the church. 

After spending some time at the church, Guido and I met with a very nice lady named Chantal Nzimbala, who is from the Congo. She is an adorer at the basilica and was interested in trying to spread the Children's Rosary at the basilica with the children that attend. We are grateful to her for her time and interest.

After this, we nearly got washed away in a furious rainstorm that came upon us all of a sudden. The rain was coming down so hard it was bouncing off the pavement, and I only had time to dash under the tiniest of outcroppings from the church. It was enough to protect my backpack but not my shoes, which ended up getting completely soaked. Ah well, it was a free shower, I suppose.

Guido took me to dinner afterwards, and then I caught a late train back to Paris for the night, I was so happy I had been able to meet Guido, and I found the visit to Brussels very interesting and refreshing."

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE