OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE

Day 122: September 9

Our Lady of La Salette, La Salette-Fallavaux, Department of Isère, France

On September 19, 1846, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, on a mountain near the village of La Salette-Fallavaux, two boys, a fifteen-year-old shepherdess named Mélanie Calvat and an eleven-year-old young shepherd named Maximin Giraud, were grazing cows.

According to their account, the apparition consists of three moments. In the first moment a beautiful Lady, dressed in a foreign fashion, appears in a resplendent light. The Lady sits on a rock, in tears, with her head in her hands. This would take place in the place called Ravin de la Sezia.

Later, the Lady got up and, speaking to the two boys in both French and Patois, would entrust them with a message directed to all humanity and thus to be spread universally. After lamenting the ungodliness and sins of men, which entail eternal estrangement from God and eventual damnation in hell if they persisted in evil, the Lady announced Divine Mercy for those who converted.

She then communicates a secret to each of the two children before disappearing into the sky above Mont-sous-les-Baisses (third moment of the apparition).

The two boys first told the incident to their masters, shepherds Baptiste Pra and Pierre Selme. Maximin Giraud was questioned by the village mayor Pierre Peytard on September 21, 1846. The two shepherds, impressed by the event, told parish priest Louis Perrin about it, who mentioned it in his sermon and in turn informed the archpriest of Corps, Pierre Mélin. It was Pierre Mélin who first informed the Bishop of Grenoble Philibert de Bruillard on October 4.

News of the apparition spread quickly. Jean-Maximin Giraud, Maximin’s father, who was not a believer at all, converted on November 8. The first pilgrimage took place on November 24, led by the two visionary children. On May 31, 1847, the pilgrimage in which the cross was posted on the mountain was attended by 5,000 believers.

In October 1846 the two visionaries were questioned by the diocesan priest Mathieu Cat. In February of the following year, they were questioned again by François Lagier, a priest who knew the local patois perfectly. On April 16, 1847, they were again interrogated by a justice of the peace in Grenoble, Fréderic-Joseph Long. On this date is recorded the first miraculous healing to Sister Claire Peirron, in Avignon. The children were questioned again by a priest, Pierre Lambert on May 29. On July 22 Clément Villecourt, then bishop of La Rochelle, made a personal pilgrimage to La Salette and interrogated Maximin and Mélanie. On August 15 another miraculous healing was declared by Mélanie Gamon, in Corps. On September 19, 1847, the first anniversary of the apparition, a pilgrimage of 50,000 faithful took place.

The following is an excerpt of the message that Our Lady communicated to the two shepherd children: “If the people do not submit, I will be forced to let go of my Son’s arm, it is so strong and so heavy that I can no longer support it […] how long I have been suffering for you! Since I have received the mission to continuously pray to my Son, I want him not to abandon you, but you pay no attention to it. No matter how much you pray and do, you can never make up for the pain I have taken for you […].

“I gave you six days to work, I reserved the seventh and you do not want to acknowledge it: this is what weighs down my Son’s arm so much […] if the harvest fails, it is your fault. I showed it to you last year with potatoes, but you did not consider it. In fact, when you found spoiled ones, you blasphemed the name of my Son. They will continue to rot, and this year, at Christmas, there will be no more. A great famine will come. Before it, children under the age of seven will be stricken with trembling and die…If these people are converted, then, the stones and rocks will be changed into piles of grain and potatoes will spring up on their own in the fields."

So confidentially and maternally Our Lady said to her friends: “Do you say your prayers, My children?” “Not very much Lady” – they answered. “Ah, My children, you must say it and well, evening and morning. When you do not have time, say at least an Our Father or a Hail Mary. When you can do better, say more. Only a few older women go to Mass in the summer. The others work on Sundays, all summer long. In winter, when they don’t know what to do, they go to Mass but to mock religion. In Lent they go to the butcher shop like dogs. Have you ever seen dead grain, My children?” “No, Madam!” – the boys answered.  Now the Lady turned to Maximinus: “But you, My son, must have seen it once with your father in the field of Coin. The master of the field told your father to go and see his dead grain. You both went there, took two or three ears of grain in your hands, crumpled them, and everything fell to dust. On the way back, when you were half an hour away from Corps, your father gave you a piece of bread saying, “take, my son, eat some more bread this year because I don’t know who will eat any next year if the wheat continues this way.” “I have, yes Ma’am, I remember now. I did not remember before.” The conversation with the Virgin ended with a heartfelt appeal: “Well, My children, you will make it known to all the people. Come on, My children, make it known to all the people.”

Having said this she rose from the ground and, slowly rose toward the Collet. Here she was joined by the astonished gazes of Maximinus and Melanie, who saw Her figure vanish and merge with the light with which She was enveloped, then the light also disappeared.

Father Livio Fanzaga and Xavier Gaeta observe: “These prophecies were in fact fulfilled. In particular, at that time came to France from North America the hitherto unknown cryptogamic epidemic, which indeed was a scourge for the vines; and infant mortality also afflicted the surrounding area of La Salette. Thus men were able to realize how much their behavior in regard to God and divine things was directly connected with developments in earthly things.”

Our Lady would reveal to each of the two children a different secret. The latter wrote them to Pope Pius IX on July 2, 1851; the secret that would be revealed to Mélanie was not made public until 1879.

St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"At the same time, the Lord granted you the greatest participation in the dignity of Jesus' Priesthood; in God's Temple, you, O Mary, make the first offering of Jesus Christ, Victim and Priest of the New Testament."

(Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, New Jersey, Vocationist Fathers, 1996, p. 158)