A difficult start
As early as 1900 the Lo was growing so fast that a parish of its own was being discussed. The church council owned an ideal plot on the corner of the Zaventemsesteenweg and the Loostraat, but in 1898 sold it to the municipality to build a school. In 1911 parish priest Meeus bought another plot further up the Loostraat. The council was not keen on a new church, and the parish only came into being in 1926. Egidius Davidts, born in Haren on 17 June 1886, moved to Diegem on 30 November 1926. He chose Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows as patron, in memory of a small chapel of that name that had once stood on the Lo and had disappeared.
To pay for the building the parish sold 2 hectares of farmland in Machelen and a plot in Diegem, together worth 507,500 francs; the municipality promised 54,000 francs. The Brussels firm De Vuyst-Lefevre won the contract for 502,000 francs. Volunteers brought in hundreds of loads of white stone by horse and cart, until more than 1,200 m³ lay ready. The first stone was laid on 5 July 1928, and on 9 September 1928 auxiliary bishop De Wachter laid the foundation stone in a solemn ceremony.
A modern little church
The nave measures 24 by 13 metres, and the tower was originally 28 metres high. Inside, round arches replace the pillars; they seem to grow smaller towards the front and end in the arch behind the altar, so that all attention is drawn there. The rough rubble stone is not laid in neat courses but criss-cross, as in the oldest Romanesque churches of Brabant. Davidts was also ahead of his time liturgically: the altar stood free of the back wall, so the priest could face the congregation, thirty years before the Second Vatican Council made this general. In 1929 the building was regarded as the most modern new church in the diocese.
Sculptor Paul Stoffyn, born in Brussels in 1884 and known for works such as ‘The Furnace Worker’ (1920) and ‘The Accordion Player’ (1923), could fully develop his religious art here. On the façade, beneath a large stone cross, stands his sober Mater Dolorosa, merging with the architecture. Beside the entrance, reliefs show farmers and their wives bringing offerings to the church; the keystone bears a vine and ears of wheat. Inside he made the Stations of the Cross (1931-1934), a large round panel of the Holy Trinity above the high altar, and wooden heads of Christ and of the Mother of Sorrows.
Bells, organ and presbytery
The Michiels foundry in Tournai cast two bells: Maria, of about 500 kg, and Egidius, of about 300 kg. The organ came from the church of Our Lady in Kuregem and cost 20,000 francs. In 1934 came marble in the choir and new confessionals, and in 1935 a parishioner donated a third bell of 675 kg. Because the municipality was slow with the presbytery, in 1928 Davidts had a temporary little house built to the left of the church so he could follow the work closely; the actual presbytery, to the right of the church, was built in 1929-1930.
War and repair
On 26 April 1943 the German administration of Melsbroek airfield announced that the tower had to be partly demolished. On 6 May six workmen took down the tower cross, and on 17 May two bells were removed; they never came back. The church was damaged again when a bomb fell 12 metres from the choir on 7 September 1943, during the bombing of Melsbroek on 15 August 1944, and when the retreating Germans blew up the airfield on 3 September 1944. In 1951 the cross returned, but the tower stayed much lower: in 1953 the aviation authority allowed only 21 metres. The designs for Felix Tuyaerts's stained-glass windows had been lost. On 4 April 1965 two new bells were blessed, Franciscus and The Good Shepherd, cast by Sergeys in Leuven.
The parish priests of the Lo
Davidts stayed until February 1940 and then became parish priest and later dean of Tervuren. His successor Jan Frans Paesmans, born in Dworp in 1889, was installed on 17 March 1940 and that year founded a Marian sodality for young girls. On 25 June 1967 he had an accident on his way back from the procession in Machelen; he died on 31 March 1968. Camille Houbrechts, an Assumptionist from Alken, came in August 1968 and died on 20 July 1973 after a traffic accident at the junction of the Luchthavenlaan and the Woluwelaan. In September 1973 he was followed by Father Jos Dehaes, who had been a missionary in the Philippines for thirty years.
On 5 September 1976 the parish celebrated its fiftieth anniversary; Isidoor Soetemans, a member of the church council for fifty years, was honoured. On 23 September 1979 came the celebration of fifty years of the church. The 93-year-old Davidts came to visit his ‘life's work’ once more, concelebrated mass and climbed the pulpit as in the old days. The church choir from Diegem sang, including Jozef Willox, who had already been there fifty years earlier. A memorial plaque to the founder and his helpers was placed in the porch.