Pillar II · Apparitions · Belgium, 1932–1933
Our Lady of Beauraing
In the winter of 1932, five children from two families in a small town in southern Belgium saw a Lady in white above a railway bridge, and then, evening after evening, in a convent school garden. Over thirty-three apparitions she asked them to be good and to pray, named herself the Immaculate Virgin and the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven, and at the end showed them a heart of gold.
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At a glance
| Place | Beauraing, province of Namur, Belgium: first above the railway bridge over the road to Rochefort, then in the garden of the convent school of the Sisters of Christian Doctrine, beneath a hawthorn near the entrance gate |
|---|---|
| Dates | Thirty-three apparitions, in the evening, from November 29, 1932 to January 3, 1933 |
| Seers | Fernande Voisin (15), Gilberte Voisin (13) and Albert Voisin (11); Andrée Degeimbre (14) and Gilberte Degeimbre (9). All five later married and kept faith with what they had seen. The last of them, Gilberte Degeimbre, died in February 2015. |
| Church judgment | Recognized by the Bishop of Namur, André-Marie Charue, on July 2, 1949, the feast of the Visitation. By a decree of that date he declared two cures miraculous, and in a letter to his clergy he wrote: “we are able in all serenity and prudence to affirm that the Queen of Heaven appeared to the children of Beauraing during the winter of 1932-1933.” The inquiry had begun under his predecessor, Bishop Thomas-Louis Heylen (accounts date his episcopal commission to 1933 or 1935); Bishop Charue acted under powers given by a decree of the Holy Office of December 7, 1942, and had authorized public devotion to Our Lady of Beauraing in 1943. Recognized before the 2024 norms. The details are below. |
| Feast | None in the universal calendar. Our Lady of Beauraing is also invoked as Our Lady of the Golden Heart. |
| Pilgrimage | The Sanctuaries of Beauraing, with the hawthorn and the apparition garden. St. John Paul II celebrated Mass there on May 18, 1985. |
| Weight | Approved private revelation: Catholics may accept it with prudent devotion but are not bound to believe it (CCC 67). |
What happened
On the evening of November 29, 1932, the children went to the Sisters' school to fetch Gilberte Voisin, who was a pupil there. Albert saw her first and called out: “Look, the Virgin, walking above the bridge!” A few meters above the railway bridge, some fifty meters away, a Lady was walking in the air, in a long white robe with a faint blue sheen and a long white veil, with rays of light about her head like a crown. The Sister who opened the door did not believe them, and for a time the superior locked the gates to stop what she called a “comedy.”
The children came back the next evenings. From December 1 the Lady appeared in the school garden, first near a holly and then beneath a hawthorn by the entrance gate, where the later apparitions took place. She usually held her hands joined, and she smiled. Crowds grew. On December 8 doctors tested the children during an apparition, pinching them and holding a lit match to one child's hands; the children felt nothing and bore no marks afterward. On January 3, 1933, the last evening, the Sanctuary puts the crowd in front of the school at 30,000.
The words of the Lady are quoted from the account of the apparitions published by the Sanctuary of Beauraing, in French; the English is our translation. The children were not mystics or scholars. They were ordinary, sometimes mischievous children, and the Lady's words to them are few and simple.
What Our Lady asked
Be good
On December 2, when Albert asked, for all of them, “What do you want?” she answered: “That you be very good” (« D'être bien sages »). Later that evening she asked: “Is it true that you will always be good?”
Pray, pray very much
On December 30: “Pray, pray very much.” On January 1: “Pray always.” And again on the last day, with her farewell: “Pray always.”
A chapel and pilgrims
On December 17 she asked for “a chapel,” and on December 23, asked why she came: “So that people may come here on pilgrimage!”
Love and sacrifice
On January 3, 1933: “I will convert sinners.” Her last words at Beauraing were a question: “Do you love my Son? Do you love me? Then sacrifice yourself for me. Goodbye.”
She told the children who she was in two steps. On December 21: “I am the Immaculate Virgin.” On January 3: “I am the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven; pray always, goodbye.”
The golden heart
From December 29, 1932, the children saw something new. As the Lady opened her arms to say goodbye, a heart of gold appeared on her breast between them, shining with light. From that evening she also carried a rosary on her right arm. The detail gave the devotion its name: Notre-Dame au Cœur d'Or, Our Lady of the Golden Heart.
Bishop Charue read the golden heart as the key to the whole event. The Queen of Heaven had come, he wrote in 1949, “especially to show us in her maternal Heart the anxious appeal for prayer and the promise of her powerful mediation for the conversion of sinners.” It is a mother's heart: it asks for prayer and promises help.
How the Church judged Beauraing
The bishops of Namur moved slowly, and the slowness is part of the story. Beauraing drew enthusiasm and mockery in equal measure, and within a year many other claimed apparitions had sprung up across Belgium, including at Beauraing itself. The Church took sixteen years to give her answer.
| Date | Act |
|---|---|
| 1933–1941 | Under Bishop Thomas-Louis Heylen of Namur, an episcopal commission examines the apparitions (accounts date it to 1933 or to 1935). The inquiry reaches no positive conclusion before his death in 1941. |
| December 7, 1942 | A decree of the Holy Office gives the Bishop of Namur, now André-Marie Charue, the authority to proceed, as his 1949 decree recalls. |
| 1943 | Bishop Charue authorizes public devotion to Our Lady of Beauraing, and solemnly inaugurates it on May 16, 1943. This permits the devotion; it does not yet pronounce on the apparitions themselves. |
| July 2, 1949 | On the feast of the Visitation, Bishop Charue issues a decree declaring two cures miraculous: that of Marie Van Laer of Turnhout, cured on June 24, 1933 of a grave disease of the spine and leg judged incurable, and that of Marie-Madeleine Acar-Group, of Sint-Niklaas, cured on July 30, 1933, on returning from a pilgrimage. He attributes them “to a special intervention of God through the intercession of Our Lady of Beauraing.” In a letter to his clergy the same day, he affirms that the Queen of Heaven appeared to the children. |
| May 18, 1985 | St. John Paul II celebrates Mass at Beauraing during his journey to the Low Countries. |
The key sentence of the letter, in French, reads: « Nous pouvons, en toute sérénité et prudence, affirmer que la Reine des cieux apparut aux enfants de Beauraing au cours de l'hiver 1932-1933 » (as quoted by the historian Yves Chiron). In his letter the bishop presented the two cures as the final element that brought him to certainty. The recognition concerns the apparitions to the five children in the winter of 1932–33, and nothing else. The other claims of those years were not recognized.
Beauraing and the Book of Revelation
Beauraing does not interpret Scripture for us. It echoes it.
- The Queen of Heaven. “A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1). The Lady who came in light, with rays about her head like a crown, called herself “the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven.”
- A mother's heart. “And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). The golden heart shows what the Gospel says in words: the mother of the Lord ponders, loves and intercedes.
- “Do you love my Son?” The risen Lord asked Peter three times, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” (John 21:17). And to the church at Ephesus: “you have lost the love you had at first” (Revelation 2:4). Our Lady's last question at Beauraing is the same question, asked of children.
- Prayers that rise. In Revelation an angel offers incense “along with the prayers of all the holy ones” (Revelation 8:3), and “the smoke of the incense along with the prayers of the holy ones went up before God” (Revelation 8:4). “Pray, pray very much”: the prayer of children joins it.
- The conversion of sinners. “Repent, and do the works you did at first” (Revelation 2:5). Revelation ends not in condemnation but in an invitation: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come’” (Revelation 22:17). “I will convert sinners” is a promise in the same key.
For reflection
Do you love my Son?
Our Lady's last words at Beauraing were not a command but a question. How would I answer it today, honestly? And what small sacrifice could I offer this week as my answer?
Sources
- Sanctuaires de Beauraing (official site), Récit des apparitions and English home page
- André-Marie Charue, Bishop of Namur, letter to the clergy of the Diocese of Namur (July 2, 1949; English text as reproduced by The Miracle Hunter)
- André-Marie Charue, Bishop of Namur, decree on two cures obtained through the intercession of Our Lady of Beauraing (July 2, 1949; English text as reproduced by The Miracle Hunter)
- St. John Paul II, Homily at Beauraing (May 18, 1985, in French)
- The Miracle Hunter, Beauraing, for the chronology of the inquiry
- Catechism of the Catholic Church 67