Join us on the pilgrimage to Andechs

Created: 05/28/2022, 11:09 am

By: Max Joseph Kronenbitter

The Kottgeisering pilgrims stand out on the edge of the Ampermoose as outlines of the slowly brightening horizon.

© mjk

If the church bells ring for minutes at 2 a.m. in Puch and at 4 a.m. in Kottgeisering and Türkenfeld, one suspects a defect in the chime.

But not on Ascension Day:

Kottgeisering/Türkenfeld/Puch – Minutes later, three large crowds of pilgrims started to pray there.

Shortly after 4 a.m. it gets light. Below the soft red horizon in the east there is a heavy fog bank on the Ampermoos, from which the three Grafrather church towers of St. Rasso, Höfen and Unteralting stand out.

"You don't see pictures like that in bed," Hermann Bichler will say enthusiastically later on the ship.

Leaders at the microphone

"...the Lord is with you, you are blessed among women...": A so-called finger rosary sticks to my index finger, with the tip of my thumb I count the ten beads that stand for a sentence.

Who or what am I praying for?

Concentration is required despite the time spent sleeping.

If you miscount, you will miss the “Glory to the Father”.

In a row of two, prayer is alternately left and right.

In order not to step on the heels of the person in front, you should quickly adapt to the uniform marching pace.

In the Eichbühl, the microphone of the prayer leaders Franziska Baumgartner and Angelika Entholzner echoes under the dense canopy of leaves.

The birds don't let that get them out of their morning concert.

Two kilometers before Eching, 94 Kottgeiserers meet 73 Türkenfeld pilgrims who have also picked up a few Zankenhauseners.

(By the way: everything from the region is now also available in our regular FFB newsletter.)

"There were once more than a hundred," said police officer Klaus Meissner, a member of the Kottgeisering Parish Council.

He's straight off the night shift.

He has been listing the participants in a book every year for the past 25 years.

"...and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus, who ascended into heaven." The prayer only stops in the center of Eching.

The destination is the steamer jetty in Stegen, where the "Herrsching" departs at 6 a.m. for a special trip to the town of the same name.

"In earlier years, on a smaller ship, we had to stand," remembers Hermann Bichler (78).

Now everyone gets a seat.

Bichler is making a pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain for the 53rd time this year.

He was there even as an altar boy.

And for football games where he was lined up, he had to march back earlier.

The youngest participant is Ferdinand Entholzner.

He has made himself comfortable in his father Michael's Kraxn.

The pilgrims have hardly left the ship when the people of Günzlhofen and Meringer board it and are already on their way back.

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While "Kreuzltrager" Rainer Hegnauer, who has been with us for 35 years and is happy "that he's going back to Andechs after a two-year break", leads his Türkenfelder through the Kiental, the Kottgeiseringers gather behind "Kreuzltrager" Michael Swoboda on the Road to Andechs.

There they meet the Puchers, who have covered the whole distance on foot.

"...Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners...".

The last half hour is spent praying again, especially loudly during the final sprint up the holy mountain.

Abbot Johannes Eckert starts the bells by remote control and welcomes everyone with a splash of holy water.

"...now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.” Father Flavian Michali, who accompanied the Kottgeiseringers for the first time this year and was happy about the large number of young pilgrims, celebrated the obligatory mass in front of the Andechs Mother of God high altar.

"The church and we pilgrims move, we have to move in order to stay alive," says the Franciscan, who also visits Marian pilgrimage sites in his free time, in his sermon.

The fact that pilgrimage also means meeting became clear afterwards with the long-awaited pork knuckle or Dampfnudel in the beer garden.

You can find more current news from the district of Fürstenfeldbruck at Merkur.de/Fürstenfeldbruck.