"Our Lady of the Poor" appears eight times in Banneux

 It was a cold and windy winter evening on 15 January 1933 in Banneux, Belgium; the ground was covered with snow and ice and snow. Inside a small house on the outskirts of the village, 11-year-old Mariette Beco was looking outside the window to wait for her brother Julien to come home. It was 7 o'clock in the evening. Suddenly, Mariette saw a beautiful lady in white standing in the front yard of their house and called to her to come out with a wave of her hand. The child's mother forbade her to go out, and locked the door. Seven other apparitions followed, between 18 January and 2 March. The Lady eventually delivered her message. She showed Mariette a spring and explained: "I have come to relieve suffering."

Reasons to believe:

• Mariette passed on a message that she didn't fully comprehend. Because of her absences, she was two years behind at school. Even in catechism classes, which she has attended for less than two years, she was at the bottom of her class. For example, "nation" and "relieve" were words unknown to her and she asked what they meant afterwards. Similarly, she did not understand the expression "Believe in me, I will believe in you", which was in response to a request for a sign from Father Jamin, the parish priest of Banneux.

• A painting was made to represent the "Virgin of the Poor". However, Mariette was not happy with it: the light in the painting depicted Mary illuminated from the outside, whereas, according to her, the light emanated from the inside. This detail couldn't have been invented except by a true witness. 

• Mariette firmly stood by the phrasing that the Virgin use to introduce herself: "I am the Mother of the Saviour, the Mother of God". Some people tried to get her to add an "and" instead of a comma. This would not have been correct: if it had been, Mariette would have made a theological error by calling into question the dogma of the Holy Trinity. Mariette's assurance showed that she was sincere and inspired by the Holy Spirit in this formulation she was repeating.

• On the evening of the second apparition, 18 January, Father Louis Jamin went to the family home to interview Mariette. He spoke to the little girl eight times, asking her pointed questions. The priest then certified that the child testified clearly and precisely, without ever contradicting herself or putting herself forward.

• Mariette was also questioned by other priests and medical doctors in the months following the apparitions. They shared Father Jamin's opinion about Mariette's credibility.

• Father Jamin had prayed to die on the anniversary of one of the Banneux apparitions. His prayer was granted: he died in 1961, on Thursday 2 March at 7pm, exactly 28 years to the day after the Virgin's 8th and last visit to Banneux. How could this be a simple coincidence?

• During the Second World War, many Jews were hidden in Banneux. One of them, the rabbi of Liège, had an apparition of the "Virgin of the Poor" at the same place where she had appeared to Mariette in 1933.

• After an investigation lasting more than ten years, in a pastoral letter dated 22 August 1949, Bishop Kerkhofs of Liège wrote: "We believe, in conscience, that we can and must recognise without reservation the reality of the eight apparitions of the Blessed Virgin to Mariette Beco." Banneux has become a major place of pilgrimage in Belgium: 500,000 pilgrims come each year to invoke the Virgin who came from Heaven to relieve their suffering and their lack of hope.

• Numerous healings (of paralysis, cancer, depression, blindness, etc.) have been recorded and authenticated at Banneux by trained doctors. It would be hard to believe that all of them are false and that none of them are the result of supernatural intervention.