๐ ๐จ๐ซ๐๐ฌ๐ญ ๐๐๐ข๐ง๐ญ ๐จ๐ ๐๐จ๐ซ๐ง๐ฬ๐ ๐๐๐ซ๐๐ฌ
There are still long stretches of the Drรจve de St Cornelius, though it is no longer continuous, fractured now by the Ring and scholastic developments.
It once ran from Groenendaal to Argenteuil on the southern edge of the Forest, linking the former Augustinian complex at Groenendaal to a community of Augustinian canonesses. Traces of the former remain. Of the latter, none.
At the Groenendaal end there is a small, quiet chapel with benches before it, dedicated to St Cornelius. What connects the man to our Forest?
Cornelius was a Pope in the early Christian church. He reigned only briefly, from 251 to 253 AD, during the unsettled years following the persecution of Christians under the Roman emperor Decius.
The church was divided at the time over what to do with Christians who had renounced their faith during persecution. Cornelius took the position that they could be forgiven and received back into the church after penance. This brought him into conflict with a rival rigorist faction led by Novatian.
Political pressure soon followed. Cornelius was exiled by the emperor Gallus and died in exile, probably from hardship rather than execution.
No clues there.
In the ninth century his relics were translated to Kornelimรผnster near Aachen. The abbey became a major pilgrimage centre and devotion to the saint spread across the Ardennes, Brabant, the Rhineland and northern France.
From this period he became associated with protection against several things that mattered deeply to rural communities.
Most notably:
Protector of cattle and livestock.
Consider his name, derived from the Latin cornu, meaning horn.
I imagine cattle moving along this route between inner forest and its margins, between pasture and settlement. Between houses of the holy.
In the Forest much can be seen and witnessed. Step away from the present and dwell for a moment in the timelessness of this place.
Among the photos there is a cheeky one. Above left, beside the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes, sits a bird box. An echo of form, of structure, of nurture.
And I do not doubt that Our Lady is smiling.