I arrived in Beauraing by train on a cloudy afternoon. I spent the night before in Brussels at an Airbnb to rest after my flight from San Francisco. I got a good night’s sleep, but jetlag would not let go of me. The slow train, which ran through the city of Namur and beautiful Belgium countryside, had almost put me to sleep. I had an enormous bag with over 40 pounds of clothes and papers crammed in the luggage rack above. I kept my laptop and other papers in a briefcase with sleeves that converted to a backpack. This oversized, oblong bag and the backpack-briefcase had served me well in my travels, but they felt too heavy on this trip. I chalked it up to age.

I had a reservation at one of the few hotels in town, which was advertised as a castle. On the map it looked like it was not far from the center of the village and everything I would need for my stay. From the description of the town online, and the Website at the Sanctuary at Our Lady of Beauraing, I expected at least a some tourist activity and taxis available at the train station. As we pulled up to the station I saw no one on the platform, only a couple of people near the station. I checked to confirm the stop. This was indeed Beauraing. I threw on my brief-pack and pulled my luggage down from the train and found myself on the platform alone with a light mist falling.

I made my way quickly into the station, an old brick building with a ticket kiosk and a few benches. I walked through the lobby to the drop off area in front. No people. No taxis. I stood waiting for a while, getting damp. I noticed some life in a bookstore across the street. So I walked there to see if I could get some help. I was told that there were no regular taxis available at the train station, except during tourist season, and that I would have to call the taxi company.

I called the number of a local company and asked if they could send me a taxi. I was told that their office was in another town and that they would not be able to send a taxi for some time, and that I would have to pay for transit from wherever the taxi was called–maybe ten or twenty miles away. It would be quite expensive.

The hotel was around one mile or so away. It appeared to be a straightforward walk from the map. The rain was subsiding, so I decided to walk it.

The first part of the walk was irritating. The sidewalk was interrupted by road work with drop offs, and spots where the plastic wheels of my overstuffed luggage dragged and clattered in gravel. I slugged along and the way seemed longer than it should have been. I checked the map. I was on the right course, but this was not going to be a short walk. I saw no colorful cafes, restaurants or stores, just modest homes and shops in this common, country town in the middle of farmland on the edge of the Ardennes. I felt more tired as I walked. Nothing seemed worth looking at. I kept my eyes on the sidewalk and trudged along.

The weather had cooperated for most of the way, a misty, light rain interspersed with sun, but as I approached the castle the rain fell more steadily. I was also a little surprised to find that the castle was indeed a castle, perched on a hill overlooking the city. I would have to drag my luggage up a long, steep driveway to get to the top. I crossed a busy street, passed through a gate, pulling my bag, ploughing up the hill, getting more soaked with every step. Almost to the top of the hill there was a bench and a statue of Our Lady of the Golden Heart overlooking the town and the Sanctuary below. I stopped and took a photo, and for that moment the rain had seemed to subside. The grounds of the castle-hotel on the hill were expansive, a large garden in the middle, the ruins of an old castle on one side and the hotel building on the other. I approached the front door of the hotel and the rain came down hard. I was anxious to get inside. The door was locked and there was a note: “We are out. Please call this number.”

I immediately looked around for somewhere to get out of the rain. The only place I could see was some sheltered area near the ruins of the old castle on the other side of the garden. I got ready to make a dash for cover, but I decided to give the number a try first.

A kind gentleman answered the phone in a thick French accent. He said he would be there quickly, so I waited near the front door. In just a few minutes, he arrived and opened the door for me. I was finally out of the rain, inside my new home for the next few days, one of the only guests at the hotel as far as I could tell.

And so my pilgrimage in Beauraing began, tired from a long journey, feeling old, far from home, dragging my belongings through the street, over obstacles, pulling baggage up a hill with more stuff on my back, getting soaked along the way, finding the door locked upon arrival at my destination.

But someone did come when I called. I did not have to dash into ruins for cover. The door was opened. I had a reservation. There was room at the Inn, more room than I could imagine. I was alone, to myself, on a hill in an old house, a castle, above the place where the Mother of Jesus is said to have appeared to five children 86 years ago.

In late 2018 I was planning a trip to Belgium in March of the coming year to present an essay about Joe at a conference in Bruges. I had been presenting papers about Joe once a year since 2011. Each time I would embark on a trip to Europe to talk about Joe, I researched holy places in the area and did my best visit them. These were little pilgrimages. That is how I learned about the apparitions of the Mother of Jesus at Beauraing, a little village on the French border about 60 miles or so south of Brussels. Hence, I can say that if it were not for Joe, I doubt that I would have paid much attention to the apparitions in this place.

The Catholic Church had approved these apparitions. But I went in search of the evidence that the Mother of Jesus had indeed appeared there. A good deal of controversy can be found in the critical literature on Beauraing, and the evidence, testimonies, descriptions of events in context, narratives are not always easy to accurately identify and assess. There is one public piece of evidence that anyone can find with a few Internet searches, and it is quite astounding. There is a 2009 interview of Gilberte Degeimbre available on YouTube. She was the last surviving visionary at the time of the interview. Ms. Degeimbre’s memoirs were also published in 2017, and she makes an appearance in a French documentary in 2012 at the age of 92.

In the 2009 interview the testimony of Gilberte Degeimbre is direct and spontaneous. At times she appears visibly moved by memories of events that happened more than 75 years ago, and at other times she withdraws and gathers herself in an effort to recollect and experience again, as accurately as she can, what happened to her as a child. It would appear that there are two general ways to view her veracity: either Ms. Degeimbre, in her late 80s and early 90s, musters the skill an accomplished actress to carry on a conspiracy of lies hatched among herself, at the age of 9, and four other children, ages 11, 13, 14 and 15, or she earnestly attempts to recount experiences she had as a child. The former is far-fetched, especially when viewed in the light of her lifelong devotion to Jesus in her memoirs; and these existed as notes written over a long period of time, ultimately published two years after her death, memoirs she viewed as a final remembrance and testimony to send to world, completely divorced from any intention for material or personal gain. The available evidence seems to point to the latter. Earnest recollections of experience are not, of course, unassailable proof that Gilberte in fact saw the mother of Jesus. But for me it is enough to presume her experiences and perceptions are generally real and true. There was something about this interview that captured me. I will come back to this later. The way she says “très bonne” (“very good”) at 23:30.

Here is interview:

The Introduction to Ms. Degeimbre’s memoirs, The Last Doorbell Rung, is also available here: