OUR LADY OF PONTMAIN

Day 250: January 17

The Apparition of Our Lady of Pontmain, Pays de la Loire, France



On the evening of January 17, 1871, Eugène Barbedette, a twelve-year-old boy, was helping his father in the barn to pound the gorse, used as fodder for animals; his ten-year-old brother, Joseph, was also there with them.

Eugène went outside to see what the weather was like, and saw, above the house opposite, a beautiful lady in a dress adorned with stars; She looked at him and smiled at him, stretching out her arms before him, as if she wanted to embrace him.

Joseph, the younger brother, also saw Our Lady. Later, when he had already become a priest, he himself related what he had seen: "She was young and tall, dressed in a blue cloak... Her dress was covered with bright golden stars. The sleeves were wide and long. She wore sandals of the same blue as her dress, adorned with gold bows. On her head she had a black veil that covered half of her forehead, which hid her hair and ears and fell over her shoulders. Above this she had a crown similar to a diadem, larger on the forehead and widening at the sides. A red line surrounded the crown in the middle. The hands were small and were outstretched towards us, as in the miraculous medal. Her face had the sweetest delicacy and a smile of ineffable sweetness. Her eyes, of an unspeakable tenderness, were fixed on us. Like a real mother, she seemed happier to look at us than we to contemplate her."

Eugène ran to his father to tell him about the Lady; In a short time, the news of the vision of the two children spread through the very small village and all the people went to the barn. Two other girls (Jeanne-Marie Lebossé, nine, and Françoise Richer, eleven) saw her.

Although Eugène's and Joseph's parents saw only three stars in a triangle, the parish priest and the nuns of the parish school were called. The parish priest and the nuns who ran the parish also arrived, who, without judgment or comment, invited all the people to pray; The apparition took place over about three and a half hours, accompanied by prayer and songs from the villagers.

Pontmain's undoubtedly remains one of the most singular Marian apparitions in history.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"No created being in heaven or on earth is destined to participate and share more than you in the Divine Nature, Image and Likeness of God, united with the supreme Union to the Divine Persons."

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 154)

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