Banneux, Belgium · 1933
In a poor working-class family in the Belgian Ardennes, in the cold winter of 1933, an eleven-year-old girl named Mariette Beco saw the Mother of God appear at the bottom of her family’s small garden. The Lady called herself the Virgin of the Poor — and the spring of water she revealed in the muddy ground that night still flows. Banneux is the shrine of Our Lady for those who feel forgotten.
The Virgin of the Poor
Mariette Beco was the eldest of seven children in a poor family that had drifted from the practice of the faith. On January 15, 1933, she was watching for her brother to come home through the snow when she saw, beyond the garden hedge, a glowing woman dressed in white with a blue sash, who smiled at her and beckoned. Frightened, Mariette ran inside; her mother, fearing illness or worse, would not let her go out. Mariette began to pray.
Over the next seven weeks the Lady appeared eight times, almost always in the freezing cold. She led Mariette to a small spring in the back of the garden, where she said: “Push your hands into the water.” Then: “This spring is reserved for me.” On a later visit she said: “I come to relieve suffering.” She asked for a small chapel to be built on the site, and called herself “the Virgin of the Poor.”
The local bishop investigated for several years before approving the apparitions in 1949. The chapel was built where the Lady asked. Mariette lived a hidden, ordinary life in Banneux until her death in 2011. She had not asked for fame; she had only opened a door for the Mother of the poor to come in.
The Sanctuary Today
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Banneux is set in the rolling Ardennes country, with the small spring at its heart. A modest chapel marks the place where the Lady appeared. Pilgrims dip their hands in the spring as Mariette was asked to do; many bring water back to the sick. The shrine has remained, by Mary’s own asking, a place for the poor, the suffering, and the unseen — a deliberately simple sanctuary in a country with many grand basilicas.
A few miles to the west lies Beauraing, where Our Lady appeared to five children in the same cold months of 1932-1933 — making Belgium one of the few countries to have two Vatican-approved Marian apparitions, both at the same time, both to children, both with a message of mercy.
A Prayer at Banneux
Virgin of the Poor,
you who crossed a frozen Belgian garden
to a girl whose family had nothing —
come again into our poverty.
Wherever wages are short and worry is long,
wherever winter has gone on too long,
let your spring well up.
Bring relief to suffering,
as you said you would. Amen.
Live from Banneux
The Sanctuary of Banneux celebrates daily Mass and the Rosary, broadcast through the Belgian Catholic media. Pilgrims continue to come, especially on the anniversaries of the eight apparitions in January, February, and March.
Visit & Learn More
- Sanctuary of Banneux (official): www.banneux-nd.be
- Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Banneux
Journey with Mary: A Path to Jesus 