Maranatha church

Ever since its foundation, the Tilburg academy has had a pastoral care unit for students. In 1962, Bishop Bekkers turned this into a student parish, named Maranatha, which is Aramaic for “Come, O Lord!” Paul used this phrase to close one of his epistles and it also occurs in the last book of the Bible. The parish caters to the entire higher education community in Tilburg, which comprised almost 30,000 students in 2017, including 2,000 from abroad.

Its opening decree proclaimed: “This will serve not only to solidify the bonds between Catholic students amongst themselves but also to facilitate contacts with their own pastors.” The first priest of the “Roman Catholic student parish The Second Coming of Christ – Maranatha” was Gerard Gelissen. He commissioned the Tilburg architect Jos Bedaux, who had just completed the University’s main building, to design the Maranatha complex. Its first stone was laid by president-curator Van Boven on the Professor Cobbenhagenlaan on 25 February 1966. One year later, Maranatha, a small copy of the University’s main building, was finished. Until that day, students had been able to attend divine service in the chapel of the St Elisabeth hospital, in the Armhoefse Akkers neighborhood.

Pastoral workers

After a high-level conflict in the early eighties, the church stood empty for about two years. In 1985, Bishop Ter Schure appointed Hub Lenders, and Maranatha virtually turned into the private chapel of the flourishing Tilburg Theological Faculty next door. In the early nineties, it had no fewer than four pastoral workers in paid employment, and a liberal liturgical practice evolved, with the faithful being given matzos rather than the traditional Hosts in its ecumenical celebrations. This caused controversy, as did the fact that fewer and fewer people who were actually students attended the celebrations. In 2007, therefore, both the University and the Support Fund decided to withdraw their funding, causing Maranatha’s financial position to become highly precarious indeed and the building to dilapidate. All these tumultuous developments then led to the exit of the full church council in 2012.

Student parish

Michiel Peeters then became Maranatha’s pastor. Peeters’ appointment by the University and the diocese together was to make sure that Maranatha would return to its being a student parish. On Sundays, the existing ecumenical services were to be conducted in a fashion that was in line with Church convention, and in addition there was also to be a proper Eucharist. And so the student church performed a go-around and now draws in increasing numbers of international students. Peeters launched celebrations in English, which are well attended. A constant in this church’s history has been the role played by volunteers, who are Maranatha’s bedrock.