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Our Lady of La Salette - Story of Apparition

A day in Autumn

In mid-September, 1846, Pierre Selme, a peasant of the Ablandins had to find a boy to replace his shepherd who had become ill. He sought out Giraud the wheelwright in Corps and tells him. "Let me have your little Maximin for a few days..." "Mémin, a shepherd? He is too much of a scatterbrain!" replied Giraud. Ther is some give and take between the two, and on September 14, Maximin walked to the Ablandins. On the 17th he saw Mélanie there. On the 18th, they ar watching their flocks in a communal pasture around Mont Planeau. That afternoon, Maximin made an attempt at conversation with the silent Mélanie. They discover that they are both form Corps. They talk a while and decide to "pasture" together at the same spot the next day.

On the mountain slopes

Early on September 19, 1846, the two children climb the slopes of the Mont sous-les-Baisses, each urging four cows up the mountain. Besides his own flock, Maximin had a goat and his dog Loulou. Sunlight flooded the Alpine slopes. Far down the mountain the Angelus bells rang out from the village church. This was a sign for the shepherds to lead their cows toward the "flock spring", a small pool formed by the brook as it tumbled down the Sézia ravine. Then they goaded the cows toward an adjoining field on the slopes of Mount Gargas. The animals browsed quietly in the hot sun.Maximin and Mélanie went back up the hollow to the "people spring" and broke out their frugal lunch of bread and cheese. Other shepherds come up from the lower pastures and joined them in friendly chatter. When they left, Maximin and Mélanie crossed the brook and came down a few steps toward two stone benches near a dry stream bed: this is the "small brook". Mélanie set down her small bag, and Maximin placed his smock and his lunch on a mearby stone.

The other brightness

Contrary to their habits, the two children lay down on the grass...and fell asleep. The September sun was relaxing and the sky was cloudless. The chattering brook highlighted the stiliness of the mountains. These were quiet moments...Mélanie woke up with a start and shook Maximin! "Mémin, Mémin, get up!... let's go look for our cows. I don't know where they are!" Quickly they climb the hillock facing the Gargas. From that vantage point they could see the surrounding area, and the cows right there, grazing peacefully. The two children were relleved. Mélanie took a few steps down the hillock. Half-way, she froze, stunned, and let her shepherd's stick fall. "Mémin, look over there, a light!" Near the small brook on one of those stone benches... there was a globe of fire. "It's as if the sun had fallen there!" But the sun still shone in a cloudless sky. Maximin ran to Mélanie's side yelling, "Where is it? Where is it?" Mélanie pointed to the bottom of the ravine where they had just rested. Maximin came to her, frozen with fear an dais, "Hold on to your stick! I am keeping mine and if it comes close I'm giving it a good whack!" The light stirred, moved and swirled. Words failed the children to describe the rush of life that streamed from the flery globe. A woman appeared within the light; she was sitting, her head in her hands, her elbows on her knees, in deepest grief.

The beautiful Lady

The Lady rose slowly. The children had not moved. She spoke to them in French:
Come near, my children, do not be afraid. I am here to tell you great news.

They approached the Lady. They stared at her. She was still crying. "She seemed like a lady that her children had beaten and who had run away into the mountains to cry". The beautiful Lady was tall. She was all light. She was dressed like the women of that region: a long dress, long apron tied at the waist, a shawl crossed and knotted in the back. On her head she wore a peasant bonnet. There were roses in a crown around her read, around her shawl and her shoes. Light shimmered like a flery diadem on her forehead. A chain seemed to weigh heavily on her shoulders. A finer lind-chain held a brilliant crucifix on her breast, with a hammer on one side and tongs on the other.

What the beautiful Lady said on the mountain

The Beautiful Lady spoke to the two shepherds:- "She wept all the while she spoke to us", said Maximin and Mélanie later. Together, or separately, the two children repeated the same words with slight variations that never affected the sense. Whether her questioners were pilgrims, public officials or ecclestatstics, investigators or journalists, friendly, neutral or hostile, they all heard the same message:

Come near; my children, do not be afraid. I am here to tell you great news!

"We listened. All our attention was on her." Like Maximin and Mélanie we ar invited to let her message come into our lives.

With them we listen and gaze at the crucifix, dazzling with glory.

If my people do not obey, I shall be compelled to loose the arm of my Son. It si so heavy that I can no longer restrain it..

How long gave I suffered for you!

If my Son is not to abandon you. I am obliged to entreat Him without ceasing. But you take no heed of that. No matter how well you pray in the future, no matter how well you act, you will never be able to make up to me what I have endured on your behalf.

I have given you six days to work. The seventh I have reserved for myself, yet no one will give it to me. This is what causes the weight of my Son's arm to be so crushing

The cart drivers cannot swear without bringing in my Son's name. These are the two things which make my Son's arm so heavy

If the harvest is spoiled, it is your own fault. I warned you last year by means of the potatoes. You paid no heed. Quite the contrary, when you discovered that the potatoes had rotted, you swore, you abused my Son's name. They will continue to be spolled, and by Christmas time this year there will be nome lef.

The local dialect word for potatoes (pommes de terre) puzzied Mélanie. In dialect one says "là ruff". The word "pommes" reminded her only of apples. She turned to Maximin for help. But the Lady said:"

Ah! You do not understand French, my children. Well then, listen. I shall say it differently.

Repeating these last sentences in dialect she continued in the "patois" spoken by Maximin and Mélanie:

If you have wheat, it will do no good to sow it, for what you sow the beasts will cat, and whaterver part of it springs up will crumble into dust when you thresh it.

A great famine is coming. But before that happens, children under seven years of age will be seized with trembling and die in the arms of those holding them. The others will pay for their sins by hunger. The grapes will rot and the nuts will be worm-caten.

Suddenly, Mélanie no longer heard the Lady's voice although her lips were still moving. She noticed that Maximin was listening very attentively. Then she, in turn, was able to hear words that Maximin could not hear. Maximin's native restlessness won out over his effort to behave. He toyed with his hat, taking it off, putting it on again, and with the tip of his walking stick he poked at pebbles. "Not a single stone touched the beautiful Lady's feet," protested Maximin a few days later. "She said something to me and told me, "You will not repeat this and this. After that I coul not hear her, and I began diverting myself." Finally, they both heard the Lady's voice again:

If my people are converted, the stones will become mounds of wheat and it will be found that the potatoes have been self-sown.

Do you say yours prayers well, my children?

The children answered with one voice: "Not too well, Madame, hardly at all".

Ah! my children, it is very important to do so, at night ant in the morning. When you don't have time, at least say an "Our Father" and a "Hail Mary"; and when you can, say more.

Only a few rather elderly women go to Mass in the summer. Everyone else works every Sunday all summer long. And in winter, when they don't know what else to do, they go to Mass only to scoff at religion. During Lent, they go to the butcher shop like dogs.

My children, haven't you ever seen spoiled wheat?

"No Madame", declared Maximin, quick to speak for Mélanie as well as for himself.

Turning toward Maximin, the Lady replied:

"But you, my children, must have seen it once near Coin with your Papa. The owner of the field said to your Papa, "Come and see my spoiled wheat." The two of you went. you took two or three ears of wheat in your hands. You rubbed them together, and they crumbled to dust. Then you came back from Coin. When your were only a half-hour away from Corps, your papa gave you a bit of bread and said: "Here, my son, eat some bread, this year anyhow. I don't know who will be eating any next year if the wheat continues this way".

"It's very true, Madame. Now I remember: Until now I didn't", admitted Maximin.
: The beautiful Lady concluded, no longer in dialect but in French:

Well, children, you will make it known to all my people.

The Verdict

On September 19, 1851, Bishop Philibert de Bruillard, Ordinary of Grenoble issued his "doctrinal pronouncement". Its basic message is the following:
We judge that the apparition of the Blessed Virgin to two shepherds on September 19, 1846 on a mountain of the Alpine chain, situated in the parish of La Salette, of the archpresbitery of Corps, bears all the characteristics of truth, and that the faithful have grounds for belleving it to be undeniable and certain.The impact of this decree was considerable. Many bishops had it read in the parishes of their dioceses. For better or worse the press took hold of it. It wasl translated into many languages and appeared in the Osservatore Romano on June 4, 1852. Congratulatory mail streamed into the bishop's offices at Grenoble.The pastoral instincts of the Bishop of Grenoble urged him on. On May 1, 1852, he published another decree announcing the construction of a shrine on the mountain of La Salette, as well as the founding of a group of diocesan missionaries to whom he gave the title of Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette. And he added: "Who can doubt that it was for the whole world that the Blessed Virgin appeared at La Salette?" The future would confirm and exceed all expectations. With a team in place, one can say that the mission of Maximin and Mélanie had come to an end.Bishop Ginoulhiac, the new bishop of Grenoble summarized the situation as he saw it on September 19, 1855: "The mission of the two shepherds has come to an end, that of the Church now begins. Those men and women of all nations and races who have found in the message of La Salette the path to conversion, a deepening of their religious faith, a vital force for daily living, and a rationale for their commitment to Christ in the service of others, ar beyond number.

The mile-high shrine

The Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, site of the Apparition of Our Lady in the French Alps, rises before an audience of solemn mountains, at an altitude of over 6.000ft. The Shrine and its lodging facilities have been enfrusted to the "Association des Pèlerins de La Salette " by ghe diocese of Grenoble. The Missionaries and the Sisters of Our Lady of La Salette provide spiritual thrust as well as the day-to-day administration of the Shrine. They are assisted by chaplains, religious or diocesan priests, by Sisters, lay associates, salaried help and volunteers.The Eucharists, the rosaries, the vigils and the processions form the prayer backdrop for talks on Scripture, round-table sharing on specific themes, informal gatherings, meetings with a chaplain. The relevant topics of missions and vocations ar part of the programs..

The Childrens

Maximin Giraud

Maximin Giraud was born at Corps, on August 26, 1835. His mother, Anne-Marie Templier hails from this same region. His father, Germain Giraud is from a neighboring district. The mother dies leaving Maximin, 17 months old, and a daugther, Angélique, who is eight years of age. Shortly after, Mr Giraud remarries, Maximin receives little attention: the wheelwright is at his workshop or at the bar. His wife is not interested in this high-strung, caretess little urchin who is always out exploring the streets of Corps, watching the stagecoaches and the old farm wagons, or roaming the countryside with his goat and his dog. Under a mop of black hair there is constant mischief brewing, a quick eye and an agile tongue. During the Apparition, while the beautiful Lady speaks to Mélanie, Maximin twirls his hat on his walking stick, or, with the other end of his staff, pokes pebbles toward the feet of the Lady. "Not a single one touched her!" he would calmly reply to questioners. Feeling appreciated he responds in kind: treated roughly he uses the same currency. Maximin had a difficult childhood. During the three years following the Apparition his half-brother Jean-Francóis, his step-mother Marie Court, and his father Giraud the wheelwright, all died. His mother's brother, the "Oncle Templier", a rough and calculating man, becomes Maximin's guardian. School progress is slow. Sister said Thècle who keeps an eye on him calls him "perpetual motion". Constant pressure from pilgrims and busybodies don't moke Maximin's life any easier. A few visionary partisans of the so-called son of Lou'si XVI want to use him for political purposes. Maximin hoodwinks them with gibberish. Against the advice of the parish priest and defving the orders of the bishop of Grenoble, they bring the boy to Ars. Maximin does not enjoy their company but enjoys the ride and the chance to see new sights. The unpredictable Father Raymond, the Curé's assistant, greets them. He calls La Salette a hoax and the children liars. During the morning of September 25. 1850, teh Curé of Ars meets with Maximin in the sacristy, then in the confessional, but without hearing his confession. What might the frustrated Maximin have told him? Teh upshot of the meeting was that for many years the holy priest will never cease to doubt and to suffer. Following the decree of September 19, 1851, he will refer everyone to teh judgment of teh bishop. Many years pass before he can give his own acquiescence and recover his peace. Maximin protested that he had never recanted, but he was at pains to explain his behavior. A mere listing of the places Maximin travelled to makes one realize to what extent the boy was exploited. From teh Rondeau minor seminary to the Grande Chartreuse, from the rectory of Seyssin to Rome. From Dax and Airesur-Adour to Vésinet, then to Tonnerre college, to Petit Jouy en Josas near Versailles and Paris. Maximin was in turn a seminarian, a nursing-home employee, a medical student. Failing the state examinations he got a job in a pharmacy. He enlisted in teh pontifical zouaves but canceled his contract after a six-month stint and returned to Paris. The newspaper La Vie Parisienne published an attack against la Salette and the two children. Maximin protestes and the newspaper prints a correction. In 1866 he publishes a short work "My Profession of Faith in the Apparition of Our Lady of La Salette" ("Ma profession de foi sur l'apparition de Notre-Dame de La Salette"). It was during this time that Mr and Mrs Jourdain, a couple devoted to him, bring a measure of stability into his life, and, at great financial risk, clear his debts. Maximin enters into a partnership with a liquor dealer who uses his now famous name to increase sales. The improvident Maximin gets nothing outo of it. In 1870 he is drafted and assigned to Fort Barrau in Grenoble. Following this he returns to Corps and is joined there by the Jourdains. The three live poorly and are helped by the fathers of the shrine with the approval of the bishop. In November Maximin makes a pilgrimage to the shrine. In the presence of a rapt audience he repeats the story of La Salette as he had done on the very first day. This would be the last time be would do so. On February 2nd he visits the parish church, also for the last time. On the evening of March 1 st, Maximin receives the sacrament of reconciliation and holy Communion, drinking a little La Salette water to swallow the wafer. Five minutes later he surrenders his spirit to God. He had not reached forty. His remains lie in the cemetery of Corps, but his heart rests within the La Salette basilica. He wanted to underscore once again his love for La Salette: "I believe firmly, even to the shedding of my blood, in the fomous apparition of the most Blessed Virgin on the holy mountain of La Salette, on September 19, 1846, the apparition that I have defended in word and suffering... It is with this spirit that I give my heart to Our Lady of La Salette". Maximin had nothing, left to give but his loyalty and his faith in the church. In the person of the Beautiful Lady the always lovable and restless boy had finally found affection in the peace of God.

Mélanie Calvat

She saw the light of day at Corps in the midst of a large family on November 7, 1831. Her father Pierre, a pitsawyer by trade took odd jobs. The mother, Julie Barnaud gave birth to ten children. Mélanie was the fourth. The family's poverty was so complete that the young were sometives dispatched to beg on the street. At a very young age Mélanie was hired out to tend the neighbors' cows. From the spring to the fall of 1846 she worked for Jean-Baptiste Pra at Les Ablandins, one of the hamlets of the village of La Salette. Prá's neighbor was Pierre Selme and it is he who hired the restless Maximin for a oneweek stint to replace his own sick shepherd. In the presence of her chatterbox companion. Mélanie, already timid and tacirturn, was on her guard. The children had some common traits. Both were born in Corps but had never met, probably because of Melanie's long absences. Both spoke the local dialect and fragmented French. They had neither schooling nor religious instruction, could neither read or write. Melanie's father was on a never ending quest, for employment. Her mother, overwhelmed with work and the cares of her brood could give each one very little affection. At the time of the apparition Maximin and Mélanie were financially, intellectually and affectively among the poorest of the poor. They were totally dependent, they would be porfoundly and definitively stamped by the apparition, which will nevertheless leave their personalities intact. Mélanie was very differente from her new companion. She tived sith strangers and was away from her family except for the winter months when she lived with them in cold and hunger. That she had become timid and withdrawn should not surprise anyone. "She always answered with a simple yes or no", said Baptiste Pra, her employer. Still, she responded clearly and simply to questions concerning La Salette. She resided four years with the Sisters of Providence. Her memory was poor and she had still less aptitude for study than Maximin. As early as November 1847, her directress feared "that the celebrity that had been thrust upon her might make her conceited." Surrounded with concern and consideration on the part of visitors when she became a postulant, then a novice in the same Congregation, she held fast to her own opinions. For this reason, the new Bishop of Grenoble, while recognizing her piety and devotion, would refuse to admit her to vows "in order to train her... in the practice of Christian humility and simplicity". Unfortunately, Mélanie then took to lending a willing ear to "troubled and sick individuals," to people whose minds were obsessed with popular prophecies, pseudo-apocalyptic and pseudo-mystical theories. This would affect her for the rest of her life. To give credence to her pronouncements she linked them to the secret she had receivedo from the Beautiful Lady. Even a cursory review points to immutable differences between what Mélanie says and writes, and the words and signs Mary gave at La Salette. Mélanie's problems and phantasms became the epicenter of her discourse. Through her prophecies she reaps revenge on those who oppose her projects. She thus expresses her rejection of a society and a hostile environment. She recreates an imaginary past where the frustrations of her childhood are effectively exorcised. As early as 1854, Bishop Ginoulhiac wrote: "the predictions attributed to Mélanie... have no basis in fact: they have no importance with regard to La Salette... they have come after La Salette and have nothing to do with it". The bishop added: "The children were given the broadest freedom to amend or deny any statement they may have made, but they have never altered anything on the veracity of the event of La Salette". With this in mind, Bishop Ginoulhiac, on September 19, 1855, proclaimed the following from the Holy Mountain itself: "The mission of the shepherds is herewith ended, that of the Church begins." Unfortunately, Mélanie pursued her prophetic meanderings. Later, these were orchestrated by the blazing talent of a Leon Bloy and would become a "Melanist" movement allegedly stemming from La Salette, but lacking any foundation except the unverifiable pronouncements of Mélanie. All this is far distant from the historical foundations of the Apparition. The content of these so-called prophecies, despite their religious vencer, have nothing to dowith religious truth as taught by the Church, and recalled by Mary at La Salette. The subject matter is no longer faith but the unstable, questionable and sterile terrein of personal assumptions. This type of writing alienates faith instead of strengthening it. In 1854, a English priest brought Mélanie to England. She entered the Carmelite convent of Darlington the following year: she took temporary vows there in 1856, but left the convent in 1860. She tried religious life again with the Sisters of Compassion of Marseille. After a stay in their convent of Cephalonia (Greece), and a short sojourn at the Carmelite convente of Marseille, she returned to the Compassion for a brief time. Following a short stay at Corps and La Salette, she went to live at Castellamare di Stabia, near Naples in Italy. She resided there seventeen years, writing her "secrets" as well as a rule for a future foundation. The Vatican urged the local bishop to forbid her this type of publication, but she persisted in ther search for approbation and an imprimatur, even extracting a hearing from a papal official, Bishop Lepidi. This, however, never constituted even a veiled approval. The authority invoked by Mélanie is incompetent in the matter. After a stay at Cannes in the south of France, Mélanie travelled to Chalon-sur-Saône, seeking to found a community with the sponsorship of the Canon de Brandt of Amiens. Eventually she entered into litigation with Bishop Perraud, the ordinary of Autum. The Holy See, brought into the matter, decided in favor of the bishop. In 1892, Mélanie returned to a place near Lecce, Italy, then journeyed to Messina in Sicily on the invitation of Canon Annibale di Francia. Following a few months in the Piedmont region, she was invited by the abbé Combe, pastor of Diou, a priest muche taken up with politico-religious prophecies, to settle in the Allier region. She finished a contrived autobiography, wherein she created an extraordinary chilhood enriched with pseudo-mystical wanderings, her own imaginings and the chimera provided by her correspondents. The message Mélanie attempts to link to La Salette during this period hes nothing whatever in common with the testimony she gave about the Apparition in the early years. When the conversation returns to the event of September 19, 1846, she reverts without fail to the simplicity and the clarity of her early narrative, which agrees with that of Maximin. She gave an instance of this on a visit to the Holy Mountain on September 18-19, 1902. She returned to Altamura, near Bari in southern Italy and died there on December 14, 1904. Her remains ar buried under a marble column with a bas-relief depicting the Virgin welcoming the shepherdess of La Salette into heaven. One thing is certain: at the close of her confused erros, there is one point from which Mélanie never departed: the testimony she and Maximin gave on the evening of September 19, 1846, in Baptiste Pra's kitchen at Les Ablandins. She held firm throughout the inquiry directed by Bishop Philibert de Bruillard, as well as that of the confirming investigation conducted by Bishop Ginoulhiac. Throughout a difficult lifetime, Mélanie remained poor an devout, ever faithful to her first testimony.

Remember

True Mother of Sorrows, the tears you shed for us on Calvary.
Remember also the care you have taken to keep us faithful to Christ, your Son. Having done so much for your children, you will not now abandon us.
Comforted by this consoling thought, we come to you pleading, despite our infidelities and ingratitude. Virgin of Reconciliation, do not reject our prayers, but intercede for us, obtain for us the grace to love Jesus above all else.
May we console you by living a holy life and so come to share eternal life Christ gained by his cross.

Amen.

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