a year of prayer: 365 Rosaries

Today, February 20, marks the anniversary of the seventh apparition of the Blessed Virgin of the Poor, Our Blessed Mother at Banneux, Belgium, to eleven year old Mariette Beco in 1933. The first six apparitions occurred on January 15, January 18, January 19, January 20, February 11, and February 15. During these encounters, Mariette saw a woman “made of light” smiling at her through her kitchen window, eventually following the Blessed Virgin, praying with her, and obeying her instructions to claim a small stream of water for her. The Blessed Mother said to Mariette, “I am the Virgin of the Poor” and “This spring is reserved for all nations- to relieve the sick.” The Virgin of the Poor requested that a small chapel be built. She further told Mariette, “I have come to relieve suffering.” Following Mariette’s request for a sign as to who she was, Our Blessed Mother replied, “Believe in me- and I will believe in you.”



During the sixth vision, the Virgin of the Poor had graced Mariette with a secret which had left her tearful and upset. Despite what we can assume was discomforting news, Marriette did not stop praying. On February 20, she knelt in the snow, braving the cold, as was her custom. She began to pray the Rosary in her garden, praying louder and faster than usual. Without warning, she left the garden, returning to the spring by the road, genuflecting twice on the way there. She knelt for no more than a moment before starting to cry. “She left too quickly,” Mariette reported to those observing, explaining her tears. Before her departure, the Blessed Virgin had implored Mariette, “My dear child, pray hard.”

Our Lady of Banneux, the Virgin of the Poor, would appear to Mariette only once more, on March 2. By the time of the seventh visitation, a small crowd had gathered, and the tale of Mariette Beco was becoming well known. Local priests and bishops had inquired, and the sick and the ill had already begun to travel to the humble spring beside the road near the Beco’s home. One bishop, Louis-Joseph Kerkhofs, Bishop of Liège making the trip at the of the apparitions, wrote the following prayer:

O virgin of the Poor, may you ever be blessed!

And blessed be He who deigned to send you to us.

What you have been and are to us now, you will always be to those who, like us, and better then us, offer their faith and their prayer.

You will be all for us, as you revealed yourself at Banneux: Mediatrix of all graces, the Mother of the Saviour, Mother of God. A compassionate and powerful Mother who loves the poor and all Peaople, who alleviates suffering, who saves individuals and all humanity, Queen and Mother of all Nations, who came to lead all those who allow themselves to be guided by you, to Jesus the true and only Source of eternal life.

Amen.