It is an odd thing to do, isn’t it? To dig out dust from a brick of a church and eat it? Even more curious is the practice surrounding this belief when considering that the bricks of the outer church were not themselves miraculous, but simply close to the miraculous wooden statue of Saint Job.

The wooden statue of Saint Job at Sint-Martinuskerk (Church of Saint Martin) sits within a glass case elevated about five feet off the ground. Job is magnificent — he is handsome and captivating despite being small in size. Miraculously, despite fires, thefts, and the arduous passage of time, this statue of Saint Job remains housed in the village church of Wezemaal, Belgium, which saw its veneration by pilgrims in the late Middle Ages

When I visited Sint-Dimpnakerk (The Church of Saint Dymphna) in Geel, Belgium at the end of May to learn more about the church and the history surrounding Saint Dymphna, I did not anticipate finding six pilgrim badges in a sixteenth-century enclosed garden (Besloten Hofje) in a corner of the church.

Two years ago, I became interested in several Saint Job pilgrim badges from a village church in Wezemaal, Belgium. This church saw throngs of medieval pilgrims flock to its site for healing and protection from physical ailments. I now find myself drawn to another pilgrimage site just thirty-five kilometres north of Wezemaal in Geel, Belgium, where pilgrims flocked not for healing of their bodies, but of their minds. Sint-Dimpnakerk (the Church of Saint Dymphna) marks where the legendary seventh-century Dymphna is honoured as both patron saint of the city and of mental illness.

Today marks the commemoration day of a remarkable English mystic, Margery Kempe, a middle-class, medieval woman born in what is now King’s Lynn, Norfolk around 1373, where she died after 1439. We know of Kempe’s life through the chance discovery of her dictated work, The Book of Margery Kempe, in the twentieth century. From her Book, which is considered the first autobiography written in English, we learn that Kempe was married and bore fourteen children before negotiating a chaste marriage.

The Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) is an important, ancient symbol in Christian iconography. The symbol is a representation of Christ’s sacrifice, as demonstrated by the lamb, and his victory, as demonstrated by the cross. The term is associated with the Paschal lamb sacrificed during Passover (as seen in Exodus chapter 12), which then later came to be a symbol associated with Easter due to the occurrence of Passover and Easter in the same time period.

The round latten-copper badges above depict a scene from an extra-biblical story about Saint Job, as explored in The Golden Scabs of Saint Job — Part One. This scene, which was frequently featured on Wezemaal badges, illustrates the moment where Job, having nothing else to offer, reaches out to give the musicians a scab from his body, which miraculously turns to gold.