Academiegebouw Berchmanianum

Beautiful building.

In the early morning I slowly slide through fog and mist. The city is extinct, the always busy, lively Radboud Campus looks like a ghost town, no chicken or student. Thursday January 2, 2020, a new decade, an old ritual, appointment and monitoring in rheumatology at the Radboud UMC. No crowded parking garages, peace, overview, order. It runs smoothly, conversation, research, puncture, pharmacy. No reason for unrest, everything stable. It is eleven o'clock, the day is open and free for me. The Erasmus head is covered with fog and barely perceptible. Sometimes shreds light up and I perceive a dark face. I stand there in the distant past, slipped away from a mind-killing lecture, looking for insight and insight. I still don't know how to tell them apart. An adventure is also good. Around the corner I enter the old monastery on the Houtlaan, Berchmanianum, that is the name now. Every building is a being, with a story, history, identity. I am curious about the essence of this building. There are no students today, there are only a handful of staff and a friendly doorman. I explain what drives me, he feels me and understands what I mean and wants, is also proud and charmed by this monument. I get some tips and the request to respect the privacy of everyone. That goes without saying. Almost everywhere the building exudes the atmosphere of the former monastery, founded in 1928 by the Jesuits. They named it after Jan Berchmans, a simple Flemish boy from Diest, born 1599, who died in Rome at the age of 22. After a fierce, laden, sometimes moving and inspired life in a world full of violence, the Eighty Years' War, he was sanctified 267 years after his death by Pope Leo the 13th on the basis of two miracles, which at that time did not leave the world. goods. In the Chapel with the colorful stained glass windows I read his life story in Vox, the Independent magazine of Radboud University. A comprehensive and thorough report from Ken Lambeets, Oct. 2018. Read it. I continue my way through a maze of corridors, stairs, vaults, four or five floors. Old and new just behind us, a splitting fungus for the Netherlands, where old and new merge in architecture, design, history and stories. My head is full of impressions, associations, raids, thoughts. Time for outside, wind, storm, fog and life. The old timepiece downstairs in the hall popped up every time during my round, just like De Gezwinde greyard van Hooft, who always gives us a check, is untraceable, swallows everything up, devours it, digests it, which seems strong.