Healing for all nations

Ed West on the 75th anniversary of the apparitions at Banneux
In January 1953 Eugene Hassett, a young parishioner at St Anthony of Padua in Edgware. London, fell seriously ill with a mystery ailment which caused him to sway from side to side like a sailor back on dry land. One day he woke up to find that he could not stand at all, and when he was taken to hospital the doctors diagnosed acute transverse myelitis — paralysis from the chest down. He was given seven days to live.
Mr Hassett's mother spoke to Fr J F Speltz, curate at St Anthony's, who came to the hospital with water from Banneux in Belgium. In the days and weeks that followed Mr Bassett drank the water from the village that had witnessed such strange happenings two decades earlier.
Banneux Notre-Dame, some I,000 feet up in the Ardennes, is poor even by the standards of Walloonia. The name derives from "banal", or common land, and much of it is covered by a marshy area known as "the Swamp", which was home to the Beco family. Wire-maker Julien Beco had been out of work for several years, and the family already had seven children (four more would follow). Marlene, the eldest, was born on Friday, March 25 1921, the Feast of the Annunciation and Good Friday.
Despite its name, the hamlet was not of particular religious importance. In 1914 Banneux was caught up in the German invasion; the people vowed to consecrate it to Our Lady if the Germans spared it. The invaders shot 27 people in neighbouring Louveigne and set fire to that village, but Banneux escaped. Neither were the Becos practising Catholics anymore.
Between November 1932 and January 1933 Our Lady had been appearing to five children at Beauraing, on the other side of French-speaking Belgium. The words spoken, "I shall convert sinners", had caused a stir across the country. The village chaplain of Banneux, Fr Louis Jarnin, a 29-yearold in poor health, commenced a novena to Our Lady asking for a conversion as proof of Beauraing, to end on January 16.
At 7 pm on the night of the 15th Marlene Beco was in the kitchen with her mother Louise, waiting for her brother Julien to come home. Looking out of the window, she saw a young lady in the yard smiling at her. The woman was bent slightly forward and wearing a long white gown with a blue sash, a transparent white veil, and seemed to be surrounded by light.
Mariette told her mother, who joked that perhaps it was the Virgin Mary. However Mrs Beco became frightened when she saw a human-shaped white light outside. She closed the curtain, but when Mariette peered through she saw the woman smiling at her. Marlette began to pray with the rosary beads she had just found on the road, and as she recited the decades she noticed the apparition's lips move in prayer. The lady beckoned her outside, but Mrs Beco locked the door.
Fr Jamin was surprised to see Mariene at Mass the following Tuesday, the first time for months. He was finther surprised — and impressed — to find her at the next catechism class and, asking her why, made a note of her extraordinary answer. He suggested perhaps she had seen the village statue of Our Lady of Lourdes.
The following night, Wednesday the 18th, Mariette left the house at 7 pm and knelt to say the rosary by the front gate, her father watching. Suddenly she raised her arms, seeing the apparition descend between two tall pine trees, with the tiny figure growing larger and more luminous. The woman joined Marlette in prayer. Mariette was later found kneeling in a ditch, her hands placed in the water, telling bystanders "this stream is reserved for me".
The next night the apparition appeared again, and when asked who she was, replied: "I am the Virgin of the Poor." She again walked to the spring by the ditch, again falling to her knees three times, and said: "This spring is reserved for all nations — to relieve the sick."
When Fr Jamin visited that evening he decided to bring along a friend, a Benedictine monk called Dom Manna!, as well as another witness, Fr Jamin remarking on the way: "If only Mr Beco could be converted as a sign from heaven!" They arrived at the house at 10 pm, with Mariette asleep and Mr Beco in strange mood. "Father. I want to go to confession tomorrow morning and receive Holy Communion," he said.
Fr Jamin was still sceptical; he took detailed notes and answers from interviews, and sent a report to Bishop Louis Joseph Kerkhofs of Liege. Mariette, meanwhile, became the object of local derision. with even grandmother and aunt making fun of her. Boys followed her around, calling her Bernadette, kneeling and asking for her blessing. She was even punched at one point.
Still she went outside every night, although the Virgin did not reappear until February 11, when she confused Mariette by speaking French (her father had to translate into Walloon, the local dialect). The eighth and final apparition appeared on March 2.
The episcopal commission investigated the site from 1935 until 1937, by which time growing numbers of pilgrims began arriving at the shrine. In May 1942 Bishop Kerkhofs of Liege approved the cult and five years later the apparitions were given preliminary approval, finalised in 1949.
Banneux did not have the fanfare of some other shrines; at its peak there were 20 people at the visitations. But perhaps it was the message that made it last. "The Virgin of the Poor" promised "to relieve the sick" for all nations. At the Little Chapel of Banneux, built over the Beco garden only two months after the last visit, the rosary has been recited at 7 pm every night since 1933, even during the war, when there was a five-hour tank battle in 1944 (it finished at 6.30 pm). A hospital was built in 1938 and can now handle 350 sick and handicapped patients; 600,000 pilgrims have arrived since then.
This year, the 75th anniversary, will see a record number, from Canada, Japan, African, the US and, of course, Great Britain, which first sent a group of 10 in 1954 led by Fr Speltz. And among the visitors will be a certain Eugene Hassett, for whom, 55 years after facing death, the promise to relieve the sick of all nations still rings true.