18th Rosa Mystica Medical Mission in the Philippines (2)

It is under this special patronage that Fr. Timothy Pfeiffer has decided to place our 18th Rosa Mystica Medical Mission. Our Lady of the Poor is a well-chosen name for the protector of a mission focused on the care of bodies and souls. But what is the origin of this name? What are the reasons for this choice?

Our Lady Appears 

In a particularly dark moment in the history of Europe, between January 15 and March 2, 1933, a winter sky, sad and icy, opens up in Banneux. In this small village in the Belgian Ardennes located on a solitary and wild plateau, a lost corner at the edge of a forest, called La Fange (The Mud), the Blessed Virgin Mary eight times visited an 11-year-old girl to whom she delivered a message.

She presented herself, under the name of Our Lady of the Poor, as the mediatrix of all graces by asking the girl to plunge her hands into the water of a "spring reserved for her" to "relieve the sick, relieve the suffering" of "all nations." After saying, "Believe in me and I will believe in you," she urges us to "pray much.”

Bishop Louis-Joseph Kerkhofs, Bishop of Liège at the time of the apparitions, invokes her as “Mediatrix of all graces, Associate of God the Savior, compassionate and powerful Mother who loves the poor and all men, who comforts the sick, who relieves suffering, who saves individuals and societies,” as “Queen and Mother of all nations come to lead those who let themselves be guided towards Jesus, true and only source of eternal life.”

It is indeed through the mediation of Mary that the reign of the Peaceful King can extend over all nations.

She Invites Herself to the Philippines

In Banneux, the Holy Virgin said that she came for “all nations.” In this year 2025, she left for a new mission. From the fogs of the desolate “Mange” of the Liège Ardennes, she reached the tropical humidity of the lost and isolated villages of the Philippine mountains of Sarangani.

Indeed, a benefactress of the mission, familiar with these places since her childhood, told us about Banneux and the apparitions of Our Lady. She told us that she was struck by the correspondence between the apostolic work of Rosa Mystica and the message of the Virgin of the Poor. Touched by Yolly’s dedication to them and her boundless missionary zeal, she offered to send her a statue of the Virgin. She will thus be present alongside the poor.

We took this statue with us in our luggage. Fr. Pfeiffer will induct her as patron saint of the mission and it is Our Lady of the Poor who will open the daily processions that inaugurate each day of the mission in the villages we visit. She is accompanied by this little note:

"Mary, our sweet and tender Mother is universal, wherever she goes, her hands are always full of grace. From a poor frozen meadow in the Ardennes, she leaves for the end of the world in the humid heat of an island lost to populations abandoned by all, but who await her without yet knowing her. She is the key to the healing of bodies and souls through your skillful hands and the priestly devotion of the priests who accompany you."

Our Lady of the Poor can take possession of these desolate places, and, as in Banneux, come to relieve the suffering of all these disinherited people who need her so much. Let us pray to Our Lady of the Poor so that she grants her protection to our Mission.

Prayer of Bishop Louis-Joseph Kerkhofs, Bishop of Liège:

O Virgin of the Poor, 
May you ever be blessed!
And blessed be He who deigned to send you to us.
What you have been and are to us now,
you will always be to those who, like us, and better than us,
offer their faith and their prayer.
You will be all for us, as you revealed yourself at Banneux:
Mediatrix of all graces, the Mother of the Savior, Mother of God.
A compassionate and powerful Mother who loves the poor and all People,
who alleviates suffering, who saves individuals and all humanity,
Queen and Mother of all Nations,
who came to lead all those who allow themselves to be guided by you,
Jesus the true and only Source of eternal life.

Amen.