Apparitions
Some young people who claimed to have seen the apparitions were Fernande (15), Gilberte (13), and Albert (11), children of Hector and Marie-Louise Perpète Voisin. Hector Voisin was a railway clerk. With them were Andrée (14) and Gilberte (9) Degeimbre, daughters of Degeimbre, a farmer's widow. [2]
On the evening of 29 November 1932, four of the children walked to a school conducted by the Sisters of Christian Doctrine to meet Gilberte Voisin and walk home with her. When they reached the school, Albert pointed out a lady dressed in a long white robe, walking in the air over a railroad viaduct just past the school. The other children reported seeing her as well. Over the next several weeks, they saw the lady thirty-two more times, generally in the garden of the convent-school. The final apparition was on 3 January 1933. [3]
The children reported that the lady requested that a chapel be built at the site and stated that "I am the Immaculate Virgin". She also desired for pilgrims to come to the site and asked the children (and everyone) to "pray, pray, pray" and, in one of the last visions, revealed her "Golden Heart". [4]
In the final vision, the Lady asked one of the children, Fernande, "Do you love My Son?" and she replied, "Yes". She then asked her "Do you love Me?" and Fernande again answered, "Yes". The Lady then stated, "Then sacrifice yourself for me" and bade them farewell before the child could reply.
Ecclesiastical review
In 1935, the Bishop of Namur, Thomas-Louis Heylen, appointed an Episcopal Commission to investigate the events. The work continued under his successor, Bishop André-Marie Charue. On 2 February 1943, he published a decree authorizing public devotions to Our Lady of Beauraing.
The final approbation for the Marian apparition was granted in 1949 with the permission of the Holy Office. [5] [6] [7]
In 1949 in Lowell, Massachusetts, the Pro Maria Committee was founded by Joseph Debergh, O.M.I. to disseminate the story of Our Lady's thirty-three appearances in Beauraing. The committee created an archive of photographs of the history and activities relating to the apparitions, now housed at The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute. [8]
After the apparitions, the five children all grew up, married, and lived quiet lives with their families. [3] Pope John Paul II visited Beauraing on 18 May 1985.
A Marian apparition is a reported supernatural appearance by Mary the mother of Jesus, or a series of related such appearances during a period of time.
Beauraing is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium. On January 1, 2018, Beauraing had a total population of 9,160. The total area is 174.55 km2, giving a population density of 52 inhabitants per km2.
Bernadette Soubirous, also known as Bernadette of Lourdes, was the firstborn daughter of a miller from Lourdes, in the department of Hautes-Pyrénées in France, and is best known for experiencing apparitions of a "young lady" who asked for a chapel to be built at the nearby cave-grotto. These apparitions occurred between 11 February and 16 July 1858, and the woman who appeared to her identified herself as the "Immaculate Conception".
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Francisco de Jesus Marto and Jacinta de Jesus Marto were siblings from Aljustrel, a small hamlet near Fátima, Portugal, who, with their cousin Lúcia dos Santos (1907–2005), reportedly witnessed three apparitions of the Angel of Peace in 1916, and several apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Cova da Iria in 1917. The title Our Lady of Fátima was given to the Virgin Mary as a result, and the Sanctuary of Fátima became a major centre of world Christian pilgrimage.
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The Lourdes apparitions are several Marian apparitions reported in 1858 by Bernadette Soubirous, the 14-year-old daughter of a miller, in the town of Lourdes in Southern France.
The veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church encompasses various devotions which include prayer, pious acts, visual arts, poetry, and music devoted to her. Popes have encouraged it, while also taking steps to reform some manifestations of it. The Holy See has insisted on the importance of distinguishing "true from false devotion, and authentic doctrine from its deformations by excess or defect". There are significantly more titles, feasts, and venerative Marian practices among Roman Catholics than in other Western Christian traditions. The term hyperdulia indicates the special veneration due to Mary, greater than the ordinary dulia for other saints, but utterly unlike the latria due only to God.
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"Immaculate Mary" or "Immaculate Mother" is a popular Roman Catholic Marian hymn. It is also known as the Lourdes Hymn, a term which also refers to the hymn tune itself. It is often sung in honour of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
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Our Lady of Pellevoisin is a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary which refers to a series of Marian apparitions in Pellevoisin, Indre, France. Pellevoisin is west of Châteauroux in the Catholic Archdiocese of Bourges.
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