The Last Doorbell Rung. My Memoirs (Gilberte Degeimbre)

Gilberte Degeimbre

The Last Doorbell Rung My Memoirs

Preface by Bishop RĂŠmy Vancottem

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The Last Doorbell Rung

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Gilberte Degeimbre

The Last Doorbell Rung My Memoirs

Foreword by Most Reverend RĂŠmy Vancottem, Bishop of Namur Introduction, Illustrations and Notes

by Fr. Christophe Rouard

Translation: Pro-Maria Committee U.S.A.

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Imprimatur: Canon J.-M. Huet, Episcopal Vicar.

Namur, December 25, 2017.

For the original French version: © 2018, Éditions jésuites Belgique : 7, rue Blondeau, 5000 Namur France : 14, rue d’Assas, 75006 Paris www.editionsjesuites.com For the current English version: © 2019, Éditions jésuites.

Legal deposit (at the Royal Library of Belgium): D.2019, 4323.12 ISBN: 978-2-87356-837-5 Layout and typesetting: Jean-Marie Schwartz Printed in E.U.

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Preface

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ilberte Degeimbre, tenacious and faithful witness, nine years old at the time of the apparitions, left behind a large autobiographical manuscript. I thank her son for forwarding it to us, and Fathers André Haquin and Christophe Rouard for proofreading it and seeing to its publication. Hence, this document has given us pilgrims of Beauraing the occasion to get to know more deeply Gilberte, her sister Andrée Degeimbre, their immediate family and all their entourage and environment.

At the time of the apparitions, Gilberte in truth remembers the hostility and spitefulness that she and her friends were faced with. Journalists, doctors, psychiatrists…as soon as the apparition ended, the children were separated and without care, submitted to a multitude of questions. Were they conscious of terrorizing the children? Gilberte speaks of them as “half-torturers,” but, that which made her most suffer was her very own mother’s attitude. Barely moved

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Preface

into the village of Beauraing, Gilberte’s mother most likely feared rejection of the local people proving her to be harsh towards her two daughters. By contrast, the three children Fernande, Gilberte, and Albert Voisin, found themselves comprehended and protected by their parents. The last apparition and Our Lady’s farewell of January 3 was what it took for the Degeimbre mother to believe her daughters admitting that they are not “liars.”

Fortunately, at the time a commission on the inquisition had been initiated by Bishop Charue, the atmosphere was different. “That which remains in my memory is that they were simple questions, not spiteful. I would even say asked with gentleness. This was not at all comparable to what we put up with in 1932-33.”

What Gilberte experienced during the apparitions brought clarity to the rest of her life. During the last years of her life she gave witness talks to all those who wanted to hear. “She was so beautiful.” Her ordinary life was enlightened by this experience of encounter with the one referring to herself as “The Immaculate Virgin.”

For us pilgrims, who like to come and pray at the Hawthorn where Our Lady appeared to five children of Beauraing, and put her heart on view as one of gold, Gilberte’s witness helps us discover daily a light that warms our hearts, enlightens our life and clarifies our way. Mary’s golden heart gleams with light, a light which is none other than the reflection of her son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

I’ve been privileged to celebrate Gilberte Degeimbre’s funeral mass in the crypt of the Basilica of The Golden Heart in Beauraing. She has entered fully into the unending light of God. There, the Lord and Our Mother the Virgin Mary, waits for us all.

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“The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him.

But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name.

And the Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”

(John 1: 9, 11-12, 14. N.A.B.)

Dear Gilberte: Thank you for having been with your sister Andrée, with Fernande, Gilberte, and Albert Voisin faithful and tenacious witnesses. + His Excellency Rémy Vancottem, Bishop of Namur •

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Introduction

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t is rare that witnesses of Marian apparitions which have been officially recognized by the Church write long accounts of their experiences. For example: one may consider “The Story of My Conversion” by Alphonse Ratisbonne. “The Life of Melanie, Shepherdess of La Salette,” “My Childhood,” and other texts written by Melanie Calvet in 1900. “Pontmain, Story of a Visionary,” by Joseph Barbedette. “Memoirs of Sister Lucia” seer of Fatima. “The Message of the Lady of all Peoples,” by Ida Peerdeman and “The Last Doorbell Rung—My Memoirs,” by Gilberte Degeimbre.

Here, we propose a truly original document for the reader. The imagery of the apparitions and autobiographical account of Gilberte Degeimbre is distinguished by her very own character traits making it a delightful reading. It is a simpler account compared to that of Alphonse Ratisbonne.

Of all narratives, Gilberte’s is the one with the least trace of religious vocabulary. “Memoirs of Sister Lucia” is a work

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The Last Doorbell Rung

of religion. In “The life of Melanie, Shepherdess of La Salette,” the references to religious and spiritual life are equally plentiful. “The Message of the Lady of all Peoples” is a daily account of Our Lady’s messages. Joseph Barbedette structured his narration in a similar manner, describing the apparition, and each time retelling it in greater detail, explaining the reactions of each person the night Mary appeared at Pontmain.

The Last Doorbell Rung offers us something different altogether. It is a text where the dominating factor between November 29, 1932, to January 3, 1933, is the humanely lived out experience of Gilberte Degeimbre (August 13, 1923 – February 10, 2015) that shook up her life as a young girl.

Gilberte puts forward in numerous pages the human context she lived. She does not dwell on the Virgin’s phrases which, for the most part, she did not even cite in the first version of her manuscript, but references to one or the other on half a page of the final text. Her concern is having the reader understand her feelings during the times of the apparitions. The first evenings of the apparitions, for instance, were fearful. The desire to see Mary again replaced the initial emotion of fear, and finally both were followed by distress due to the unbelief of her close ones. She spends much time also relating certain events that took place after the apparitions and hence shows what repercussions these had on her childhood and adolescent world.

Gilberte’s Memoirs have a long history. From 1978 to 1981, she handwrote for her sister Andrée’s son, Christian Van den Steen, an account of her life before and after the apparitions. Andrée also saw the Virgin during the same period. The handwritten notes were far from constituting a final text. Frequent ruptures, hesitations, and numerous

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put offs accumulated throughout these eighty-seven unstructured sheets of paper. The reader may read them on the Jesuit website which edited this work. The original drafts were left in a drawer at Christian Van den Steen’s for more than twenty years until one day Gilberte’s husband, André Philippe, went to look for them and made photocopies.

The couple returned to Beauraing in 2004, after having lived forty-seven years in Italy. It is then that Gilberte had wanted to see once again her notes hoping to leave behind an account of what she lived out during her childhood. Her husband retyped the notes on the computer, and working with his wife, corrected them. They were put in order; the structure was polished off with augmented and rephrased paragraphs. At this stage of the text’s history, André’s influence cannot be ignored. The notes from 1978-81 were rough copies. The final text is more complete, but Gilberte still considered it unfinished. She would have liked the format to be more realistic. The content was what she wanted to truly say, but the format did not correspond to that which she was hoping to leave behind. Despite all these factors she wanted the text published. Here and there, Gilberte annotated the text by hand, especially the page where she tells of the time when she and her friends went ringing doorbells. This is echoed in the title of her manuscript, that she marked in ink, “it was The Last Doorbell Rung.” Three years before her death, Gilberte gave the text to her son Jean-François, asking him to look after its publication. Her son gave the text to Father André Haquin, Theologian and resident of Beauraing, it was then given to Father Claude Bastin, Rector of the Sanctuaries of Beauraing, who finally entrusted it to me for publication.

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Jeanine Laluyé et Rose-Marie Tasset saved the text to the computer, Sister Marie Madeleine Burnet proofread the document, and all following put me to work with the hope to prepare it for publication. I reread, annotated, and illustrated the work with numerous photos. I saw to the conclusion of the text only when told that Christian Van den Steen still had a photo of the three Degeimbre sisters dated before the apparitions. Arriving at his home he told me that he not only had this photo reproduced in the paragraph titled La vie de la Famille (Family Life) but also the original manuscript of Gilberte’s text, coup de Théâtre (Drama Theatre). Faced with the two texts it was questionable what attitude to have towards them. It was discerned with Father André Haquin and the Jesuit Publication Company that it was preferable to publish the final text –the one Gilberte asked to be published– in book format, and upon consultation with the reader, to propose him or her to read the 1978-81 text in numeric format.

With the account of her Memoirs, Jean-François has also given us his mother’s journals all of which permit us to better discover what kind of young person Gilberte was. One of these journals includes songs illustrated with some colored drawings. In reading these songs, one hears the young catholic women of the period, intoning together refrains and choruses. They sing of the countryside, nature, family, and faith. On the cover page is written G. Degeimbre eighth year. This certainly corresponds to her eighth year of elementary school when she was about 14 years old. A second journal begins with two lists of names of Pre-Jocistes, (youth preparing to enter the Catholic Action Movement known then as the YCW Young Christian Worker.) The list included dates of birth between 1929-31 for the first group,

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and 1931-32 for the second, the latter being children that the adolescent Gilberte a Jociste (already a member), animated and knew without doubt more intimately. A description of twenty-four collective games followed. In reading the descriptions one imagines the young women harmoniously playing and having fun together. The third journal is more religious. Its subject matter is linked to a bi-monthly confession dated March 7, 1945. This third journal is certainly tardier. Gilberte was 21 at the time. It equally contains some lines manifesting her involvement in the resistance movement during the war with SM (Sargent Major) Michel Lallemand, 2nd Battalion para-commando peloton c-stick-7 skaeffen (diest). Here we discover a woman in battle for her country, and equally involved in great devotion towards Jesus. She goes into detail about her day with Jesus, filling it with prayers addressed to Him, for example, when she wakes up, and from time to time, confronted with difficulty, prays before and after an action. She prays for guidance following a mistake or a negligence, when she suffers or is in pain, and before going to sleep. She offers her day to the Divine Heart of Jesus in these terms: All instances, all actions of my day are yours, Lord; I offer them all to you without reserve. Do not permit anything that may render them unworthy of your Heart to enter. I renounce everything that may alter their merit. Make it so, my God that I begin, continue and, end each action in your grace, in view solely to please and serve you. I unite them to the sentiments and merits of your adorable Heart, that must be their means and end, just as will be the crown of recompense. Amen.

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“Her life was life with Jesus,” as Jean-François said to me. “It’s what she taught me,” he added while showing me the New Testament his parents offered him as a child and on which his mother wrote:

Translation of the above.

The Holy Bible of Canon Crampon “You shall read often a page of the Gospel and mediate on it. You will find the richness of its teaching based on the love of God and love of neighbor. I ask that you follow well these precepts. Very affectionately, your mother.”

Gilberte’s faith had truly been centered on Jesus. Her attachment to Mary, came in second in regards Mary’s bond to her Divine Son, Jesus. Her immensity did not lessen.

Gilberte constantly thought of this at the Hawthorn, the place where she saw the Virgin as a young girl. She said this regularly during the last years of her life at Beauraing. The book she wanted to leave behind is a supplementary witness she gives to the apparitions of the Mother of God, that shook up her life and influenced her passage to eternal life.

“That she may not leave me all alone at the time of death!”

Gilberte would willingly say. Mary must have certainly

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accompanied Gilberte at the time of her death and entry to the beyond!

In the same way, Mary accompanies daily life at the Sanctuaries of Beauraing. Since 1933, millions of pilgrims have gone there in response to Our Lady’s request of December 23, 1932, “That people may come here on pilgrimages.” This place of worship was authorized in 1943 and Bishop Charue recognized the authenticity of the facts in 1949. A chapel was built in answer to Our Lady’s wish that She formulated on December 17, 1932. It was inaugurated in 1954, and since then other places of worship have been erected, one of which has been elevated to the rank of Minor Basilica on August 22, 2013.

A continuation of all that was said and written will be unfolded in the succeeding pages.

Father Christophe Rouard

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Cumont

My birth It was August 1923, and a baby was expected at the Cumont farm, situated between Wancennes and Vonêche.

As the family already had two daughters, it was normal for family and friends to wish for a boy. However, my father was hoping for a third daughter. Therefore, Andrée was waiting for a little sister to be brought home, on a swallow’s tail, as she had been told. This gave her much work to do as there were about 100 swallow nests around the farm.

They were aligned in two rows on the south wall, from one end of the farm house to the other. A third row was already under construction. There were also nests in the stables and in the barns and everyone was happily moving about. My father was very happy and even had a shelter put up above the front door. Poor Andrée was very brave and patient in observing the swallows’ comings and goings.

Not the whole book is accessible

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Table of Contents

Preface by Most Reverend Rémy Vancottem.......................... 5 Introduction .......................................................................... 9 Cumont ................................................................................ 17 My birth .................................................................................... 17 My christening ............................................................................ 19 The dresses .................................................................................. 20 Lily of the Valley.......................................................................... 21 Walk behind me .......................................................................... 22 Learning to read.......................................................................... 23 The good times ............................................................................ 24 The evening meal ........................................................................ 24 In bed ........................................................................................ 26 My sister Jeanne .......................................................................... 27 Children’s delight ........................................................................ 28 St. Nicholas’ day ........................................................................ 32 What an odd business .................................................................. 33 An operation was needed.............................................................. 34 School ........................................................................................ 36 Family life .................................................................................. 37

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The Feast of the Ascension ............................................................

A great happiness compromised ....................................................

Who was my father? ....................................................................

Sunless tomorrows........................................................................

39 41 44 48

Beauraing .............................................................................. 53 The move .................................................................................... 53 School ........................................................................................ 54 New friends ................................................................................ 56 Come with us .............................................................................. 57 Practical jokes ............................................................................ 58 Tuesday, November 29, 1932 ........................................................ 59 The evening of November 30 ........................................................ 64 The First of December.................................................................. 66 Friday December 2 ...................................................................... 68 December 3 and 4 ...................................................................... 73 December 5 ................................................................................ 73 December 6 ................................................................................ 74 The days that followed.................................................................. 75 The bullying starts ...................................................................... 78 The interrogations........................................................................ 82 With trembling and fear .............................................................. 86 Tomorrow, I shall say something to each of you .............................. 92 At Mother Théophile’s.................................................................. 97 Good Father Maes ......................................................................100 And afterwards! ....................................................................101 The sick ......................................................................................103 The generous donors… disappointed ............................................105 Father Lafineur ..........................................................................106 Bishop Heylen ............................................................................ 110 Bishop Charue ............................................................................ 111 Princess Josephine ........................................................................ 112 The Notary Laurent .................................................................... 113 Virton ........................................................................................ 117 Mother ...................................................................................... 120 My sister Andrée.......................................................................... 126 The good Fathers ........................................................................ 129 Radio and cinema ...................................................................... 131

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Appendix I: The 1935 Commission of Inquiry ...................... 133 Appendix II: Letters from an English soldier to Mrs. Degeimbre and Gilberte ...................... 137

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Printed by Nouvelle Imprimerie Laballery 58500 Clamecy Legal deposit : June 2019 Printing number : 906028 Printed in France

The Last Doorbell Rung “A Liar.” is is how the mother of Gilberte Degeimbre considered her daughter, one of the five children who witnessed the apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Beauraing. Gilberte had to wait until the final apparition for the mother to finally believe. Beyond a simple autobiographical story, this edited English text, introduces the lector to the daily life of a little 9-year-old girl, who suddenly is witness to extraordinary phenomena. If the encounters with the Virgin declare her fortunate, contributing to a happiness never known, it was a veritable Calvary that she experienced between apparitions that gain our attention. Disowned by her mother, she had to face, after each manifestation of the Virgin, a bitter course of scientific and ecclesiastical interrogations. A poignant story that reveals beyond the immense joy of the apparitions, a daily Way of the Cross endured by the last seer of Beauraing.

ISBN 978-2-87356-837-5 Prix TTC : 15,90 €

9 782873 568375

Front cover: photography © ASBL Pro Maria.

Introductions, illustrations and notes

by Father Christophe Rouard, Vice-Rector of the Shrines at Beauraing