Activities for families
- 24 minute movie on the apparitions✓
- Praying at the hawthorn, burn a candle, mail a letter to Mary✓
- Way of the cross✓
- Rosary ceramics to colour✓
- Making a sign of the cross in front of the holy wather font✓
- Stop by the icon of Our Lady of Beauraing✓
- Read Mary's words engraved on the wall of the apparition garden✓
- Walk or bike the golden heart routes✓
- Participate at Mass✓
- Receive the sacrament of reconciliation✓
- Visit the marian museum✓
- Buy souvenirs at the Pro Maria gift shop✓
- Live out a magnificent afternoon with family on August 15✓
Each year numerous families come to the Sanctuaries of Beauraing. Often children and their parents discover the apparitions of Our Lady of The Golden Heart by watching a short 24 minute film. A person from the Sanctuaries is there to welcome them.
They always find their way to the hawthorn, where the apparitions happened, there, they place in Mary’s heart prayer intentions for themselves and for those close to them. At the hawthorn, they may burn a candle or mail a letter to Mary by placing it in the mailbox.
Parents and children may also take advantage of other possibilities at the Sanctuaries of Beauraing: a didactic way of the cross, ceramics of the Rosary that children may colour. A large holy water font at the entrance of the Basilica allows an explanation on the sacrament of baptism. Many are the existing possibilities in the different places of the Sanctuaries of Beauraing. They will gladly stop by the relic of Saint John-Paul II, the icon of Our Lady of Beauraing, the wall where sentences spoken by the Virgin are engraved…
Parents and children may travel together the routes of the Golden Heart. The pilgrimage road network roams the beautiful nature that, surrounds the village of Beauraing and come to an end at the place where on the 23rd of December 1932, Mary said that she appeared at Beauraing so “that people come here on pilgrimage.” Taking part in one of the Golden heart routes as a family may be a magnificent experience.
Certain families equally wish to participate in the celebration of the Eucharist. They may join one of the Sanctuaries masses (at 10:30 am Monday to Saturday and at 12:00 pm and 3:45pm on Sunday) or attend weekday mass at the parish church at 5:45 pm. Other numerous prayer times are also proposed to families: rosary, adoration of the Holy Sacrament, salutation, the hour of mercy, vespers. Parents and children may live out these prayer times with the faithful of the Sanctuaries, who pray at different times of the day. Certain priests of the Sanctuaries understand English. They can hear confessions.
Numerous documents and objects may also be discovered at the Marian museum of the Sanctuaries, where hundreds of statues of the Virgin Mary are assembled along with clothes belonging to the children who saw Mary at Beauraing, there are also, photos of the time period of the apparitions and other interesting pieces. In the basilica, you will find an exhibition with more than 300 documents related to the apparitions of Beauraing.
Parents and children are generally very happy to take back with them a souvenir of their pilgrimage at Beauraing: a post card, a book, a statue, a CD, a DVD… All may be found in the Sanctuaries of Beauraing gift shop, “Pro Maria.”
An excellent way to end Sunday is by a visit to the Monastic Fraternity of Tibériade. This fraternity of young monks and nuns reserves a spiritual welcoming to children and young adults in such a way that many years there after will not be forgotten.
Every year, on the afternoon of August 15th a large celebration is organized for children in which they receive a catechetical teaching, pay homage to Mary and are each blessed individually. Unborn children are also blessed. Parents and grandparents may receive a blessing for their children and grandchildren.