Location Beauraing, Belgium | Type Marian apparition | |
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Date 29 November, 1932 - 3 January 1933 Holy See approval 1949, during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII | ||
Our Lady of Beauraing (also known as the Virgin of the Golden Heart) is the title of 33 Marian apparitions reported in Beauraing, Belgium, between November 1932 and January 1933 by five children whose ages ranged between 9 and 15. For several years after the apparitions, pilgrims flocked to the small town of Beauraing, province of Namur (Belgium), and many cures were claimed.
Contents
The Apparitions
The young people who claimed to have seen the apparitions were Fernande (15), Gilberte (13), and Albert (11), children of Hector and Marie-Louise Perpete Voisin. Hector Voisin was a railway clerk. With them were Andree (14) and Gilberte (9) Degeimbre, daughters of Germaine Degeimbre, a farmer's widow.
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, near 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 garden of the convent-school. The final apparition was on 3 January 1933.
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.
In the final vision, the Lady reportedly asked one of the children called Fernande: "Do you love My Son?" and she replied "Yes". She then asked her "Do you love Me?" and she 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 under the direction of the Holy Office.
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.
After the apparitions, the five children all grew up, married, and lived quiet lives with their families.