At the Beauraing boarding school in the Walloon countryside, five children — Fernande, Gilberte, and Albert Voisin (aged 15, 13, and 11) and Andrée and Gilberte Degeimbre (14 and 9) — were called by their schoolmistress to fetch Gilberte Voisin from her school across the street. On the way back the children saw a luminous woman walking above a railway bridge.
Over the next five weeks, thirty-three apparitions followed in the school garden by the lourdes grotto. The Lady identified herself as the Immaculate Virgin and the Mother of God, asked for prayer and the building of a chapel, showed the children her golden heart, and made the prophecy that 'Soon I will convert sinners.' Crowds in the tens of thousands gathered in the cold for the final apparitions.
After lengthy investigation Bishop Charue of Namur recognised the apparitions as worthy of belief in 1943 and authorised devotion in 1949. Beauraing remains the principal Marian pilgrimage of Belgium alongside Banneux.