Apparitions
The five young children who claimed to have seen the apparitions were Fernande (15), Gilberte (13), and Albert (11) Voisin, children of Hector, a railway clerk, and Marie-Louise Perpète Voisin, and Andrée (14) and Gilberte (9) Degeimbre, daughters of Degeimbre, a farmer's widow. [2]
On 29 November 1932, around 6 p.m., four of the children walked to a boarding school run by the Sisters of Christian Doctrine to meet up with Gilberte Voisin and walk home with her. Albert, who had just rung the bell at the school, turned around and exclaimed, “Look! the Virgin walking on that bridge!". The girls turned around and saw the figure of a lady dressed in white walking a meter above the railroad viaduct nearby. A nun of the convent, Sister Valéria, came to open the door and did not believe the children. The nun then went to fetch Gilberte and when she arrived at the doorstep, she too saw the vision. Frightened, the five children ran home but agreed to return the next day. The next day, 30 November, the Virgin appeared to them again above the bridge at the same time.
On 1 December, the children were this time accompanied by their parents and some friends. The widow Degeimbre, armed with a big stick, wanted to find the person who was scaring the children. The Virgin first appeared on the bridge. She then appeared near a holly tree in the convent's garden. Each time she appeared, the parents would see their children as if thrown to their knees, but they could not see the visions themselves. The Virgin then disappeared again and appeared under a hawthorn tree near the garden gate. This was where she appeared for all the thirty remaining apparitions. The Superior, Mother Theophile, wanted to put an end to the “comedy” and decided to close the gates of the garden and to let loose their two dogs.
On 2 December the children returned but could no longer enter the garden, so they remained on the sidewalk in the street. The Virgin appeared to them again, facing them on the other side of the gate. The moment she appeared, the dogs stopped barking and layed on the ground. That evening, Albert asked the Virgin: "Are you the Immaculate Conception?". The Virgin smiled and nodded her head. Then he asked: “What do you want?” The Virgin spoke for the first time and answered: “Always be good.” Then, in a second apparition that evening, she asked Albert: “Is it true that you will always be good?”. On 3 December, there was a crowd of 150 standing in the street.
The apparitions continued day after day and started gathering crowds. In the meantime, the Sisters had lifted their ban on visits to the garden. On 8 December, the day of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the crowd was even larger than usual and between 10,000 and 15,000 people were present. This time they were accompanied by a number of doctors and psychologists who performed tests on the children while they were ecstatic for over fifteen minutes. The children remained insensitive and retained no trace of the painful tests. For the first time, the bishop of Namur was told about the apparitions, who urged caution and forbade the clergy to attend the apparitions.
On 17 December, the Virgin asked for “a chapel”. On 21 December, when asked “Tell us who you are”, she named herself “I am the Immaculate Virgin". On 23 December, the children asked “Why do you come here?” and she replied "So that people might come here on pilgrimages.”. On 29 December, the Virgin warned that she would soon stop appearing to them. That day, the Blessed Virgin opened her arms in the usual gesture of farewell and revealed a "Heart of Gold" surrounded by glittering rays on her chest. This was the vision which gave her the name of the Virgin of the Golden Heart. On 30 December she asked to “Pray, pray very much.”. On 1 January, she asked to “Pray always.”. On 2 January, over 12,000 people were gathered and the Virgin told the children that she will talk and deliver a secret to each of them the next day.
The day of the last apparition, on 3 January 1933, 30,000 people had gathered in front of the school. The Virgin entrusted each of the three youngest with a personal message that is still unknown. After entrusting them with these secrets, the Virgin declared to Andrée “I am the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven. Pray always. Goodbye.” Then she promised to Gilberte Voisin “I will convert sinners.” Finally, she asked Fernande “Do you love my Son? Do you love me? Then sacrifice yourself...for me. Goodbye.” [3] [4] [5]
During the visions, the children reported that the Virgin Mary looked young, dressed in a long white dress. They said that three rays of blue azure draped the dress, obliquely, from the left shoulder to the hem. Her head was covered with a long white veil and that rays of light emerged from her head to form a crown. From 29 December onwards the children also discovered that a rosary hung from her arm and that she presented a Heart of Gold. [3] [5]
Ecclesiastical review
In 1935, the Bishop of Namur, Thomas-Louis Heylen, appointed an Episcopal Commission to investigate the events. After his death, the work continued under his successor, Bishop André-Marie Charue.
On 7 December 1942, Bishop Charue received from the Holy See a decree approved by Pope Pius XII which authorized him to proceed toward canonical recognition. On 2 February 1943, he published a decree authorizing public devotions to Our Lady of Beauraing. On 16 May 1943, he solemnly inaugurated this devotion at a great ceremony attended by 24,000 people. [3] The final approbation for the Marian apparition was granted on 2 July 1949 with the permission of the Holy Office. [6] [7] [8] Two documents were released that day: a letter from the Bishop to the clergy of his diocese and an episcopal decree recognizing as authentic miracles two healings credited to Our Lady of Beauraing. One was the cure of Miss Van Laer of a spinal column deformation and tumors in a diseased leg on 24 June 1933, and the other one was the cure of Mrs. Acar who was cured of a tumor of the womb on 30 July 1933. [3] [5]
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 and International Marian Research Institute. [9]
The chapel was consecrated on 21 August 1954. [3]
After the apparitions, the five children all grew up, married, and lived quiet lives with their families. [3] [5]
Pope John Paul II visited Beauraing on 18 May 1985. [10]
Beauraing is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium. On 1 January 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 young lady who appeared to her identified herself as the "Immaculate Conception".
Our Lady of Fátima is a Catholic title of Mary, mother of Jesus, based on the Marian apparitions reported in 1917 by three shepherd children at the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal. The three children were Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto. José Alves Correia da Silva, Bishop of Leiria, declared the events worthy of belief on 13 October 1930.
The First Saturdays Devotion, also called the Act of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a Catholic devotion which, according to Sister Lúcia of Fátima, was requested by the Virgin Mary in an apparition at Pontevedra, Spain, in December 1925.
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 global Roman Catholic pilgrimage.
The Pontevedra apparitions are the Marian apparition of Mary, mother of Jesus and her child, Jesus, that Sister Lúcia, the Portuguese seer of Our Lady of Fátima, reported receiving in December 1925, while living in a Dorothean convent in Pontevedra, Spain, and a visitation of the child Jesus by himself in February 1926, near the convent's garden.
Our Lady of Lourdes is a title of the Virgin Mary. She is venerated under this title by the Roman Catholic Church due to her apparitions that occurred in Lourdes, France. The first apparition of 11 February 1858, of which Bernadette Soubirous told her mother that a "Lady" spoke to her in the cave of Massabielle while she was gathering firewood with her sister and a friend. Similar apparitions of the "Lady" were reported on 18 occasions that year, until the climax revelation in which she introduced herself as: "the Immaculate Conception". On 18 January 1862, the local Bishop of Tarbes Bertrand-Sévère Laurence endorsed the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes.
Our Lady of Pontmain, also known as Our Lady of Hope, is the title given to the Virgin Mary following her apparition at Pontmain, France on 17 January 1871.
The National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion, formerly dedicated as the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, is a Catholic shrine to Mary, mother of God located within the Diocese of Green Bay in the United States. The chapel is in the Champion section of Green Bay, about 16 miles (26 km) northeast of downtown Green Bay proper. It stands on the site of the reported apparition of Mary to a Belgian-born woman, Adele Brise, in 1859.
Our Lady of La Vang refers to a reported Marian apparition at a time when Catholics were persecuted and killed in Vietnam. The Shrine of our Lady of La Vang is situated in what is today Hải Phú commune in Hải Lăng District of Quảng Trị Province in Central Vietnam.
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.
Our Lady of Kibeho, also known as Our Lady of Sorrows of Kibeho, is a Catholic title of the Mary, mother of Jesus, based on the Marian apparitions reported in the 1980s by several adolescents in Kibeho, south-western Rwanda. The young visionaries were Alphonsine Mumureke, Nathalie Mukamazimpaka and Marie Claire Mukangango.
Our Lady of Laus or Refuge of Sinners denotes Marian apparitions that took place between 1664 and 1718 in Saint-Étienne-le-Laus, France, to Benoîte Rencurel, a young shepherdess. The apparitions were approved by the Holy See on 5 May 2008. Pope Pius IX granted a Canonical Coronation to her marble image on 23 May 1855.
The Mariology of the popes is the theological study of the influence that the popes have had on the development, formulation and transformation of the Roman Catholic Church's doctrines and devotions relating to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Our Lady of Banneux, or Our Lady of the Poor, is the sobriquet given to the eight apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Mariette Beco, an adolescent girl living in Banneux, Liège Province, Belgium, between 15 January and 2 March 1933. Beco told her family and parish priest of seeing a Lady in white who declared herself to be the "Virgin of the Poor", saying "I come to relieve suffering" and "Believe in me and I will believe in you".
The Green Scapular is a Roman Catholic devotional article approved by Pope Pius IX in 1870. It is worn to gain the intercession of the Virgin Mary in the wearer's life and work, as well as (especially) at the moment of one's own death. Use of this article is generally understood to be more liberal than other scapulars; the favor it earns will apply to anyone who wears it, carries it, or simply keeps it aside. It can even be carried or kept by one party in the stead of another if circumstances impede the intended recipient to safely or practically accept it.
The consecration and entrustment to the Virgin Mary is a personal or collective act of Marian devotion among Catholics, with the Latin terms oblatio, servitus, commendatio and dedicatio being used in this context. Consecration is an act by which a person is dedicated to a sacred service, or an act which separates an object, location or region from a common and profane mode to one for sacred use. The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments clarifies that in this context, "It should be recalled, however, that the term "consecration" is used here in a broad and non-technical sense: the expression is use of 'consecrating children to Our Lady', by which is intended placing children under her protection and asking her maternal blessing for them".
Pierina Gilli, was an Italian visionary who claimed to receive apparitions and messages from the Virgin Mary in 1947 and 1966. The Marian apparitions were originally determined by the local ordinary, after consultation with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), to be lacking in sufficient evidence of credibility. However, a process of review which began in 2013 and is ongoing as of 2022 has reached a provisional finding of the 'validity and exemplarity of the mystical-spiritual experience of Pierina, as well as the richness of her existential, humble and virtuous story.' Having reached a favourable view of the person of the visionary, the diocese is conducting a review of the theology of Pierina's writings in the light of Catholic teaching.
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.
