Mary’s promise in Banneux

Long before the apparitions of Lourdes, someone had said that if Mary wanted to appear somewhere, Lourdes was among the most appropriate places because it already belonged to her!

The same is true of the Belgian village that was renamed “Banneux Notre Dame” in 1914. During the tragic days of the German invasion, at the beginning of WWI, all the populated areas of the region were attacked and burned. Seeing flames in the not-so-far distance, the inhabitants of the small village of Banneux gathered in the church and solemnly promised to dedicate their village to Mary and add the name of Our Lady (Notre Dame) to Banneux if they were spared.

And in fact, the Germans bypassed the village, heading towards central France, and nothing tragic occurred for the remainder of the war. At the end of the war, the village obtained the right to use the new name of Banneux Notre Dame. Here, as in Lourdes, Mary is truly “at home.”

Vittorio Messori, L'enigma di Banneux - in Ipotesi su Maria, Edizioni Ares, Milano (Italia).