APPARITION
of the
BLESSED VIRGIN
on the
Mountain of
LA SALETTE
the 19th of September, 1846.
THE APPARITION
Only the witness herself, Melanie, can, along with Maximin, give an account of
the apparition. After giving it by word of mouth an incalculable number of times, she decided to
write it all down
in 1878. It was published at Lecce on the 15th of November 1879 — with the "Imprimatur" of Bishop Zola — and
reprinted "ne varietur" at Lyon in 1904, a few months before Melanie's death. This slim booklet is now a rarity.
The
text is followed exactly here.
APPARITION
of the
BLESSED VIRGIN
on the
Mountain of
LA SALETTE
the 19th of September, 1846.
Published
by the Shepherdess of La Salette with Imprimatur by Mgr. Bishop of Lecce.
"Well my children, you will pass this on to all of my people."
Simple
reproduction without commentary or controversy of the original edition of
Lecce in 1879.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The original text of the Message
and Secret of La Salette, approved by the Catholic
Church, are published in their entirety here for the
first time in the English Language.
We sincerely thank Mr. Joseph
Corteville, President of the Association of the Children of
Notre Dame of La Salette and of Saint Louis Marie
Grignion of Montfort, and Director of L'Impartialt, a
Marian revue to have graciously supplied us with this manuscript and for
authorizing
us to publish same.
In our turn, we authorize all
people, journalist, editor or association to republish this
faithfully in whole or in part.
It is essential that these
prophetic messages be wide spread more than ever in all of
the world and as quickly as possible. It is an order from
the Mother of God. "Well my children, you will pass it on to all of my
people."
We are counting on the support
and initiative of all people of good will to attain our
goal. We ask Our Lady's blessings on this apostolate and its
supporters.
The
Editors
+ Association of the Children
of Our Lady of La Salette,
12th Ave. of Grain d'or,
49600, Beaupreau, FRANCE
+ L'Impartial, same address.
Bi-monthly, French Bulletin,
One year subscription, $4.00
APPARITION
of the
BLESSED VIRGIN
on the
Mountain of
LA SALETTE
the 19th of September, 1846.
"On the 18th of September (1846), the eve of the Holy Apparition of the Holy
Virgin, I was alone, as usual, watching
over my Master's cows. Around eleven o'clock
in the morning, I saw a small boy
walking towards me. I was frightened at
this, for it seemed to me that everyone ought to know that I avoided all kinds of company. This boy came up to
me and said:
"Little girl, I'm coming
with you, I'm from Corps, too". At these words,
the natural evil in me soon showed itself, and taking
a few steps back, I told him: "I don't want anybody
around. I want to be alone." But this boy followed me, saying:
"Go on, let me stay with you. My Master told
me to come and watch over my cows together with yours. I'm from Corps."
I
walked away from him, gesturing to him that
I didn't want anybody around, and when I was some distance away, I sat down on the grass. There, I used to talk with the little flowers or the Good Lord.
A moment later, I looked behind
me, and there I found Maximin sitting close to me. Straightaway
he says to me: "Keep me with you. I'll be very good."
But the natural evil in me will
not hear reason. I jump to my feet, and run a
little farther off without saying a word and again I
start playing with the little flowers of the Good Lord. In an instant,
Maximin was there again, telling me he would
be very good, that he wouldn't talk, that he
would get bored all by himself, and that his Master
had sent him to be with me, etc. This time,
I took pity, I gestured to him to sit down, and I
kept on playing with the little flowers of the Good Lord.
It wasn't long before Maximin
broke the silence by bursting into laughter (I think he was making
fun of me). I look at him and he says to me: "Let's
have some fun, let's make up a game". I said
nothing in reply, for I was so ignorant I didn't
understand what games with other people were,
always having been alone. I played with the
flowers, on my own, and Maximin came right up close to me, doing
nothing but laughing, telling me that flowers didn't
have ears to listen to me and that we should
play together instead. But I had no liking for the game
he told me to play. I started talking to him, however, and he told me that the ten days he was to spend with his Master would soon be over and then he would
go home to his father in Corps etc...
While he was talking, I heard the
bell of La Salette, it was the Angelus. I gestured to Maximin to
lift his soul up to God. He took off his hat
and was silent for a moment. Then I said: "Do
you want to have dinner?" "Yes, he replied, let's
eat." We sat down and I brought out of my bag
the provisions my Master had given me. As was
my habit, before breaking into my little round
loaf, I made a cross with the point of my knife
in the bread, and a little hole in the middle, saying: "If the devil's in
there. may he leave, and if the Good Lord is in there, may
he stay:" and I rapidly covered up the little
hole. Maximin burst into laughter and kicked the loaf
out of my hands. It rolled down the mountainside and was lost
from sight. I had another piece of bread which
we shared. Afterwards, we played a game. Then,
realizing that Maximin must still be hungry, I
pointed out a place on the mountainside covered
with all kinds of berries. I urged him to go and
eat some and he went straight away. He ate a few
berries and brought back his hat full of them.
In the evening we walked back down the mountain
together and promised to come back the next day and watch over our cows together.
The next day, the 19th of
September, I met Maximin on the way up. We climbed
up the mountain side together. I discovered that Maximin was a very good,
simple boy, and would willingly
talk about what I wanted to talk about. He was also very flexible and had no fixed Opinions. He
was just a little curious, for, when I walked away from him, as soon as he saw I had stopped, he would run over to me to see what I was doing and hear what I was saving to the flowers of the Good Lord. And if he arrived too
late, he would ask me what I had said.
Maximin told me to teach him a game. It was
already late morning. I told him to gather some flowers for the "Paradise". We set to work together. Soon we had a number of flowers of various
colors. I could hear the village Angelus ringing,
for the weather was fine and there wasn't
a cloud in the sky. Having told the Good Lord what we had learned, I said to Maximin that we ought to drive our cows on to a small plateau near the gully, where there would be stones with which to build the "Paradise".
We drove our cows to the selected
spot and then had a small meal. Then
we started collecting stones to
build our little house, which comprised of a so-called ground-floor which was where we were to live, and then a storey above which was to
be, as we called it, "Paradise."
This storey was decorated all over with different-colored flowers, with garlands hanging from flower stalks. This "Paradise" was
covered by a single large stone which we had strewn with flowers. We had also hung garlands all the
way round. When we had finished, we
sat and looked at the "Paradise". We began to feel sleepy and having moved a couple of feet away, we went to sleep
on the grass.
II
When I woke up I couldn't
see the cows, so I called Maximin and
climbed up the little mound. From there I
could see our cows grazing peacefully
and I was on my way down, with Maximin on his way up, when all at once I
saw a beautiful light shining more brightly than the sun.
"Maximin, do you see
what is over there? Oh! my
God!" At the same moment, I dropped the stick I was holding. Something inconceivably fantastic passed through me in that moment, and I felt myself being drawn. I felt a great respect, full
of love, and my heart beat faster.
I kept my eyes firmly fixed
on this light, which
was static, and as if it had opened up, I caught sight of another, much more brilliant light
which was moving, and in this light I saw a most
beautiful lady sitting on top of our Paradise, with her head in her
hands.
This beautiful Lady stood up, she coolly crossed her arms while watching us, and said to us:
"Come, my children, fear not, I am here to PROCLAIM GREAT NEWS TO
YOU."
These soft and sweet words
made me fly to her, and
my heart desired to attach itself to her forever.
When I was up close to the
Beautiful Lady, in front of her to her
right, she began to speak and from her beautiful eyes tears also started to flow.
"If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I
am forced to let go off the hand of my Son.
It is so heavy and weighs me down so much I can no longer keep hold
of it.
I have suffered all the time for the rest of you!
If I do not wish my Son
to abandon you, I must take it upon myself to pray
for this continually. And the rest of you think
little of this. In vain you will pray, in vain you
will act, you will never be able to make up for the troubles I have taken over for
the rest of you.
I gave you six days to work, I kept the seventh
for myself, and no one wishes to grant it to me.
This is what weighs down the arm of my Son so much.
Those
who drive carts cannot speak without putting the name of my Son in the middle.
These are the two things which weigh down the
arm of my Son so much. If the harvest is spoiled,
it is only because of the rest of you. I made you see this last
year with the potatoes, you took little
account of this. It was quite the opposite
when you found bad potatoes, you swore oaths,
and you included the name of my Son. They
will continue to go bad, at Christmas there will be none left."
At
this point, I was trying to interpret the word "potatoes" (pommes de
terre): I thought I understood it to be
"apples" (pommes)[1].
The Beautiful and Good Lady, reading my thoughts, repeated thus:
"You do not understand, my children. I will tell it to you another
way.
"If the harvest is spoiled, it does not seem to affect you. I made you see
this last year with the potatoes. You took
little account of this. It was quite
the opposite when you found bad potatoes,
you swore oaths, and 'you included the name
of my Son. They will continue to go bad and at Christmas, there will be
none left.
If you have corn, you must not sow it. The beasts will eat
all that you sow. And all that grows will fall to dust when you thresh it. A great
famine will come. Before the famine comes, children under the age of
seven will begin to tremble and will die in the arms of those who
hold them. The others will do penance through hunger. The nuts
will go bad, the grapes will become rotten."
At this point, the Beautiful Lady, who was entrancing me, for a moment did not make herself
heard. I could see, however, that she was continuing, as if speaking, to move
graciously her kindly lips. At this
moment, Maximin was receiving
his secret. Then, turning to me, the Most
Holy Virgin spoke to me and gave me a secret in French. Here is this secret in its entirely
as she gave it to me:
III
"Melanie, what I am about to
tell you now will not always be a secret. You may
make it public in 1858.
The priests, ministers of my Son,
the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their
impiety in the celebration of the holy mysteries,
by their love of money, their love of honors
and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools
of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking vengeance,
and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to
those dedicated to God who by their
unfaithfulness and their wicked lives are crucifying my
Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven
and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for
there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for
the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one
left worthy of offering a stainless sacrifice to the Eternal for the
sake of the world.
God will strike in an unprecedented way. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be
able to escape so many afflictions together.
The chiefs, the leaders of the
people of God have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has
bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old
devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish. God
will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among
those who reign in every society and in every family. Physical and
moral agonies will be suffered. God will
abandon mankind to itself and will
send punishments which will follow one after the other for more than
thirty-five years.
The Society of men is on the eve
of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must
expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of
the wrath of God.
May the curate of my Son, Pope Pius IX never leave
Rome again after 1859; may he, however, be
steadfast and noble, may he fight with the weapons
of faith and love. I will be at his side. May he
be on his guard against Napoleon: he is two-faced,
and when he wishes to make himself Pope as well as Emperor,
God will soon draw back from him. He is the master-mind who,
always wanting to ascend further, will fall on
the sword he wished to use to force his people to be raised up.
Italy
will be punished for her ambition in wanting to shake off
the yoke of the Lord of Lords. And so she will be left to fight a war; blood will flow on
all sides. Churches will be locked up or desecrated. Priests and religious orders will be hunted
down, and made to die a cruel death. Several will abandon the faith, and a great number of
priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these
people there will even be bishops.
May the Pope guard against the performers of
miracles. For the time has come when the most astonishing wonders will take
place on the earth and in the air.
In the year 1864, Lucifer
together with a large
number of demons will be unloosed from hell; they will put an end to faith little by little, even
in those dedicated to God. They will blind them
in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of
these angels of hell; several religious institutions will lose all faith and
will lose many souls.
Evil books will be abundant on earth and the
spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening in all that
concerns the service of God. They will have great power over Nature: there will be churches built to serve these
spirits. People will be transported from one place to another by these evil spirits, even priests, for they
will not have been guided by the good spirit
of the Gospel which is a spirit of humility, charity
and zeal for the glory of God. On occasions, the dead and the righteous
will be brought back to life. (That is to say that these dead will take on the form of righteous souls which had lived on earth, in order to lead men further astray; these so-called resurrected dead, who will be
nothing but the devil in this form, will preach another Gospel contrary to that
of the true Christ Jesus, denying
the existence of Heaven;
that is also to say, the souls of the damned. All these souls will appear as if fixed to their
bodies ).[2]
Everywhere there will be extraordinary wonders.,
as true faith has faded and false light brightens
the people. Woe to the Princes of the Church who
think only of piling riches upon riches to protect their authority
and dominate with pride.
The Vicar of my Son will suffer a great deal, because for a while the
Church will yield to large persecution, a
time of darkness and the Church will witness a frightful crisis.
The true faith to the Lord having been forgotten,
each individual will want to be on his own and be
superior to people of same identity, they will
abolish civil rights as well as ecclesiastical, all
order and all justice would be trampled underfoot
and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension would be seen
without love for country or family.
The Holy Father will suffer a great deal. I will be
with him until the end and receive his sacrifice.
The mischievous would attempt his life several
times to do harm and shorten his days but
neither him nor his successor will see the triumph of the Church of
God.
All the civil governments will have one and the
same plan, which will be to abolish and do away
with every religious principal, to make way for
materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds.
In
the year 1865, there will be desecration of holy
places. In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the King of all hearts. May those in charge of religious communities be on their guard against the people they must receive, for the devil will resort to all his evil tricks to
introduce sinners into religious
orders, for disorder and the love of
carnal pleasures will be spread all over the earth.
France, Italy, Spain and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the
streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which
will be appalling. For a time, God will cease to remember France and Italy because the Gospel of
Jesus Christ has been forgotten. The wicked will make use of all their evil ways. Men will kill
each other, massacre each other
even in their homes.
At the first blow of His thundering sword, the
mountains and all Nature will tremble in terror,
for the disorders and crimes of men have pierced
the vault of the heavens. Paris will burn and
Marseille will be engulfed. Several cities will be
shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes.
People will believe that all is lost. Nothing
will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of
arms and blasphemy.
The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers,
their penances and their tears will rise up to
Heaven and all of God's people will beg for
forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession. And then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ and all those given over to sin will perish and the earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshipped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in It's poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in it's faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and
man will live in fear of God.
This peace among men will be
short-lived. Twenty-five years of plentiful harvests will make them
forget that the sins of men are the cause of all the troubles on this
earth.
A forerunner of the Antichrist,
with his troops gathered from several nations, will fight against
the true Christ, the only Savior of the world.
He will shed much blood and will want to annihilate
the worship of God to make himself be looked upon as a God.
The earth will be struck by
calamities of all kinds (in addition to plague and famine which will
be wide-spread). There will be a series of wars
until the last war, which will then be fought
by the ten Kings of the Antichrist, all of whom will have one and the
same plan and will be the only rulers of the
world. Before this comes to pass,
there will be a kind of false peace in
the world. People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. But the children of the holy Church, the children of my faith, my true
followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Spirit! I shall fight at their side until they
reach a fullness of years.
Nature is asking for vengeance
because of man, and she trembles with dread at what must happen
to the earth stained with crime. Tremble, earth,
and you who proclaim yourselves as serving
Jesus Christ and who, on the inside, only adore
yourselves, tremble for God will hand you over
to His enemy, because the holy places are in a
state of corruption. Many convents are no longer
houses of God, but the grazing-grounds of Asmodeas and his like. It will be
during this time that the Antichrist will be born
of a Hebrew nun, a false virgin who will communicate with the
old serpent, the master of impurity, his father
will be B. At birth, he will spew out blasphemy;
he will have teeth, in a word, he will be the
devil incarnate. He will scream horribly, he will
perform wonders, he will feed on nothing but
impurity. He will have brothers who, although
not devils incarnate like him, will be children
of evil. At the age of twelve, they will draw attention
upon themselves by the gallant victories they will have won; soon
they will each lead armies, aided by the legions of hell.
The seasons will be altered, the
earth will produce nothing but bad fruit, the
stars will lose their regular motion, the moon
will only reflect a faint reddish glow. Water and
fire will give the earth's globe convulsions and
terrible earthquakes which will swallow up
mountains, cities, etc...
Rome will lose the faith and
become the seat of the Antichrist.
The demons of the air together
with the Antichrist will perform great wonders on earth and in
the atmosphere, and men will become more and more perverted. God will take care
of his faithful servants and men of good will. The Gospel
will be preached everywhere, and all peoples of all nations will get to
know the truth.
I make an urgent appeal to the
earth. I call on the true disciples of the living
God who reigns in Heaven; I call on the true
followers of Christ made man, the only true Savior of
men; I call on my children,
the true faithful, those who have given themselves to me so
that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I carry in
my arms, so to speak, those who have lived on my
spirit. Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last
Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who
have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves,
in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in
mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world. It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children, I am at your side and within you, provided that your faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy
days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of
Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see.
For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends.
The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay. But now Enoch and Eli will come, filled with the Spirit of God. They will preach with the might of God, and men of good will will believe in God, and many souls will be comforted. They will make great steps forward through the virtue of the Holy Spirit and will condemn the devilish lapses of the Antichrist. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth! There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious
diseases. It will rain with a fearful hail of
animals. There will be thunderstorms which will shake cities, earthquakes which will swallow up countries. Voices will be heard in the air. Men
will beat their heads against walls, call for their
death, and on another side death will be their torment. Blood will flow
on all sides. Who will be the victor if God
does not shorten the length of the test?
All the blood, the tears and the
prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Enoch and Eli will be put to
death. Pagan Rome will disappear. The fire of Heaven will fall and consume three cities.
All the universe will be struck
with terror and many will let themselves be led astray because they have not worshipped the true Christ who lives among them. It is time; the sun is darkening; only faith will survive.
Now is the time; the abyss is opening. Here is the
King of Kings of darkness, here is the Beast with his subjects, calling himself
the Savior of the world. He will rise proudly into the air to go to
Heaven. He will be smothered by the breath of the
Archangel Saint Michael. He will fall, and the
earth, which will have been in a continuous series of evolutions for three
days, will open up its fiery bowels: and he will
have plunged for eternity with all his followers into
the everlasting chasms of hell. And then water
and fire will purge the earth and consume all the works of men's pride
and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified."
IV
Then
the Holy Virgin gave me, also in French, THE
RULE OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ORDER. When
She had given me the Rule of this new religious
Order, the Holy Virgin continued the speech in the same manner[3]:
"If they convert, the stones and rocks will change
into wheat, and potatoes will be found sown
in the earth. Do you say your prayers properly, my children?"
We both replied: "Oh! no, Madame, not so much."
"Oh! my children, you must say them morning
and evening. When you
can do no more, say a Pater and an Ave Maria; and
when you have the time to do better, you will say more.
Only a few old women go to Mass; in the summer,
the rest work all day Sunday and in the winter,
when they are at a loose end, they only go to
mass to make fun of religion. During Lent, they go to the butcher's
like hungry dogs.
Have your ever seen any spoilt wheat, my children?
We both answered: "Oh no, Madame." The Holy Virgin turned to Maximin, saying:
But you, my child, you must have seen some once
near le "Coin", with your father. The farmer
said to your father: "Come and see how my
wheat's gone bad!" You went to see. Your father
took two or three ears in his hand, rubbed them,
and they fell to dust. Then, on your way back,
when you were no more than half an hour away
from Corps, your father gave you a piece of
bread, and said: "Take it, eat it while you can, my son, for I don't know who will be
eating anything next year if the wheat is spoiled like that!"
Maximin replied:
"It's quite true, Madame, I didn't remember."
The Most Holy Virgin
brought her speech to an end in French.
"AND SO, MY CHILDREN, YOU WILL PASS THIS ON TO ALL MY PEOPLE."
The most beautiful Lady
crossed the stream, and after two more
steps, without turning back towards us, who
were following Her (for we were drawn
to her by her brilliance and even more
by her kindness which elated me, which seemed
to melt my heart), she repeated to us: "AND SO, MY CHILDREN,
YOU WILL PASS THIS ON TO ALL MY PEOPLE."
Then, She walked on up to
the place where I had
gone to see our cows. Her feet touched nothing but the tips of the grass and without bending them. Once on the top of the little mound, the beautiful Lady stopped, and I hurried to stand in front of Her to look at Her so, so closely, and try and see which path she was most inclined to take. For it was all over for me. I
had forgotten both my cows and the masters I worked for. I had linked myself
forever and unconditionally to my Lady.
Yes, I wanted never, never to leave Her. I followed Her with no other motive and fully disposed to serve Her for the rest
of my life.
In the presence of my Lady,
I felt I had forgotten
paradise. I thought of nothing more but to serve Her in every way possible; and I felt I could
have done everything she could have asked me
to do, for it seemed to me that She had a great deal of power. She looked at me with a tender kindness which drew me to Her. I could have
thrown myself into Her arms with my eyes closed.
She did not give me the time to do so. She
rose imperceptibly from the ground to a height of around four feet or more; and, hanging thus in the air for a split second, my beautiful Lady looked up to Heaven, then down on the earth to her right and then her left[4] , then She looked
at me with Her eyes so soft, so kind and so good that I felt She was drawing me inside Her, and my heart seemed to open up to Hers. And as my heart melted away, sweetly gladdened, the
beautiful face of my good Lady disappeared
little by little. It seemed to me that the light
in motion was growing stronger, or rather condensing
around the Most Holy Virgin, to prevent me seeing her any longer.
And thus light took the
place of the parts of Her
body which were disappearing in front of my eyes, or rather it seemed to me that the body of my Lady was melting into light. Thus the sphere of light rose gently towards the right. I cannot say whether the volume of light decreased
as She rose, or whether the growing distance
made me see less and less light as She rose.
What I do know, is that I was a long time with my head raised up,
staring at the light, even after the light,
which kept getting further away and
decreasing in volume, had finally disappeared. I take my eyes from the firmament, I look around me.
I see Maximin looking at
me, and I say to him: "Maxi,
that must have been my father's Good Lord,
or the Holy Virgin, or some other great saint"[5]
And Maximin throws his arms into the air and
says: "Oh! If only I'd known!"
V
The evening of the 19th of
September, we went back down a
little earlier than usual. When I arrived at my master's
farm, I was busy tying up my cows and tidying up in the
stable, and had not yet finished when my mistress came up to me in tears and said:
"Why, my child, why
didn't you come and tell me what happened on
the mountain?"
Maximin, not having found
his masters who were still at work, had
come over to mine and recounted everything he
had seen and heard. I replied:
"I did want to tell
you, but I wanted to get my
work finished first." A moment later, I walked over to the house and my mistress said to
me:
"Tell me what you have seen. De Bruite, the
shepherd (that was the nick name of Pierre
Selme, Maximin's master), has told me everything."
I began, and towards the
middle of the account,
my master arrived back from the fields. My
mistress, who was in tears at hearing the complaints
and threats of our sweet Mother, said: "Ah! You were going to
harvest the wheat tomorrow (Sunday). Take
great care. Come and hear what
happened today to this child and Pierre
Selme's shepherd-boy." And turning to me, she said:
"Repeat everything you have said."
I start again, and when I
had finished, my master said:
"It was the Holy
Virgin or else a great saint, who has come on behalf of the Good Lord, but it's
as if the Good Lord had come Himself. We must do what this
Saint said. How are you going to manage to tell that to all Her
people?"
I
replied:
"You tell me how I
must go about it, and I will
do it." Then, looking at his mother, wife, and
brother, he added:
"I'll have to think
about that". Then everyone went back to their
business.
After supper, Maximin and
his masters came over
to see my masters and to recount what Maximin had told them, and decide what was to be
done.
"For, they said, it
seems to us that it was the Holy
Virgin sent by the Good Lord. The words which She spoke convince us of this.
And She told them to pass it on to all Her people.
Perhaps these children will have to travel
the world over to make it known that
everyone must observe the commandments of the Good Lord, lest great
misfortunes come upon us."
After a moment's silence, my master said to
Maximin and I:
"Do you know what you
must do, my children?
Tomorrow, you must get up early and both of you go and see the priest and tell him everything you have seen and heard. Tell him carefully how it all happened. He will tell you what you
have to do."
The 20th of September, the
day after the Apparition, I left early in the morning with Maximin. When we reached the presbytery, I knocked
at the door. The priest's house keeper came
and opened the door and asked us what we
wanted. I said to her (in French, and I, who had never spoken French),
"We
would like to speak to Father Perrin."
"And what have you got to say to him?" she asked.
"We wish to tell him,
Miss, that yesterday we went
up to watch over our cows on Baisses Mountain,
and after dinner, etc... etc. We recounted
a good piece of the Most Holy Virgin's words. Then the church-bell rang: it was the final call
for Mass. Father Perrin, the parish priest of La Salette, who had heard us,
flung open his door, he was in
tears and was beating his chest. He said to us:
"My children, we are
lost, God will punish us. Oh!
Good Lord! It was the Holy Virgin who appeared
to you! And he left to say Holy Mass. We looked
at each other, Maximin, the housekeeper and I. Then Maximin said to me:
"Me, I'm off home to my
father at Corps", and we parted company.
As my masters had not told
me to return to work
immediately after speaking to Father Perrin,
I saw no harm in going to Mass. And so I was in church. Mass begins and after the first reading from the Gospel, Father Perrin turns to the congregation and tries to recount to his parishioners, the story of the Apparition which had just taken place, the day before, on one of their mountains, and he urges them to stop working
on Sundays. His voice was broken with sobs, and all the congregation was
greatly moved. After Holy Mass, I went back
to my masters to work. Mr. Peytard,
who still today is the mayor of La
Salette[6] , came to question me on the Apparition, and when he had made sure that I was
speaking the truth, he went away convinced.
I stayed on in the service
of my masters until All
Saint's Day. Then I was boarded with the nuns
of Providence, in my home town of Corps.
VI
The Most Holy Virgin was tall and well-proportioned.
She seemed so light that a mere breath could
have stirred Her, yet She was motionless and perfectly balanced. Her
face was majestic, imposing, but not imposing in the manner of the Lords here below. She compelled a respectful fear.
At the same time as Her Majesty compelled respect
mingled with love, She drew me to Her. Her
gaze was soft and penetrating. Her eyes seemed to speak to mine, but the conversation came out of a deep and vivid feeling of love for this
ravishing beauty who was liquefying me. The softness of Her gaze, Her air of
incomprehensible goodness made me understand
and feel that she was drawing me to Her and wanted to give Herself. It was an expression of love which cannot be expressed with the tongue of the flesh, nor with
the letters of the alphabet.
The clothing of the Most
Holy Virgin was silver
white and quite brilliant. It was quite intangible.
It was made up of light and glory, sparkling and
dazzling. There is no expression nor comparison to be found on earth.
The Holy Virgin was all
beauty and all love; the
sight of Her overwhelmed me. In her finery as in Her person, everything radiated the majesty,
the splendor, the magnificence of a Queen beyond
compare. She seemed as white, immaculate,
crystallized, dazzling, heavenly, fresh and new as a Virgin. The word LOVE seemed to slip from Her pure and silvery lips. She appeared to me like a good Mother, full of kindness, amiability,
of love for us, of compassion and mercy.
The crown of roses which She
had placed on Her head was so
beautiful, so brilliant, that it defies
imagination. The different colored roses were not of this earth; it was a joining together of flowers which crowned the head of the Most Holy
Virgin. But the roses kept changing and replacing
each other, and then, from the heart of each rose, there shone a beautiful entrancing light, which gave
the roses a shimmering beauty. From the
crown of roses there seemed to arise golden
branches and a number of other little flowers
mingled with the shining ones. The whole thing formed a most beautiful
diadem,which
alone shone brighter than our earth's sun.
The Holy Virgin had a most
pretty cross hanging
round Her neck. This cross seemed golden, (I say
golden rather than gold-plated, for I have sometimes seen objects which were
golden with varying shades of gold, which had a much more beautiful effect on my eyes than simple gold-plate). On this shining, beautiful cross, there
was a Christ, it was Our Lord on the
Cross. Near both ends of the cross
there was a hammer, and at the other end, a pair of tongs. The Christ
was skin-colored, but He shone dazzlingly;
and the light that shone forth from
His holy body seemed like brightly
shining darts which pierced my heart
with the desire to melt inside Him. At times,
the Christ appeared to be dead. His head was bent forward and His body seemed to give way, as if about to fall, had He not been held back
by the nails which held him to the Cross.
I felt a deep compassion
and would have liked to
tell His unknown love to the whole world, and to let seep into mortal souls the most heartfelt love and gratitude towards a God who had no need whatsoever of us to be everything He is, was and always will be. And yet, O love that men cannot understand, He made Himself man, and wanted to die, yes, die, so as to better inscribe in
our souls and in our memory, the passionate
love He has for us! Oh, how wretched am I
to find myself so poor in my expression of the love of our good Savior for us! But, in another
way, how happy we are to be able to feel more deeply that which we cannot
express!
At other times, the Christ
appeared to be alive. His head was
erect, His eves open, and He seemed to be on
the cross of His own accord. At times, too, He appeared to speak: He seemed to
show that He was on the cross for our sake, out of love for us, to draw us to His love, and that He always has more love to give us, that His love in the beginning and in the year 33 is always that
of today and will be for ever more.
The Holy Virgin was crying
nearly the whole time
she was speaking to me. Her tears flowed gently, one by one, down to her knees, then, like
sparks of light, they disappeared. They were glittering
and full of love. I would have liked to comfort Her and stop Her tears. But it seemed to me that She needed the tears to show better Her love forgotten by men. I would have liked to
throw myself into Her arms and say to Her:
"My kind Mother, do not
cry! I want to love you for all men on
earth." But she seemed to be saying to me:
"There
are so many who know me not!"
I was in between life and
death, and on one side,
I saw so much desire by this Mother to be loved,
and on another side, so much cold and indifference... Oh! my Mother, most
beautiful and lovable Mother, my love, heart of my heart!
The tears of our sweet Mother,
far from lessening her air of
majesty, of a Queen and a Mistress, seemed, on the
contrary, to embellish Her, to
make Her more beautiful, more powerful, more filled with love, more maternal, more ravishing, and I could have wiped away Her tears which made my heart leap with compassion and love. To see a mother cry, and such a Mother, without doing everything possible to comfort her and change her grief into joy, is that possible? Oh! Mother, who is more than good, you have been formed with all the prerogatives God is able to make; you have married the power of God, so to speak; you are good, and more, you are good with the goodness of God Himself. God has extended Himself by making you His terrestrial
and celestial masterpiece.
The Most Holy Virgin had a yellow
pinafore. What am I saying, yellow? She had a pinafore more
brilliant than several suns put together. It was
not of tangible material, it was composed of glory,
and this glory was scintillating, and ravishingly
beautiful. Everything in the Holy Virgin carried me firmly and made
me kind of slide into the adoration and love of my Jesus in every state of His mortal
life.
The Most Holy Virgin had two
chains, one a little wider than the other. From the narrower one
hung the cross which I mentioned earlier. These
chains (since they must be given the name of
chains) were like rays of brightly shining glory,
sparkling and dazzling. Her shoes, (since they must
be called shoes) were white, but a silvery brilliant
white. There were roses around them. These roses were dazzlingly beautiful, and from the heart of each rose there shone forth a flame of very beautiful and pleasing light. On Her shoes there was a buckle of gold, not the gold of this
earth, but rather the gold of paradise.
The sight of the Holy Virgin was
itself a perfect paradise. She had everything needed to satisfy,
for earth had been forgotten. The Holy-Virgin
was surrounded by two lights. The first light,
the nearer to the Most Holy Virgin, reached as far as us. It shone
most beautifully and scintillatingly.
The
second light shone out a little around the Beautiful
Lady and we found ourselves bathed in it. It was motionless (that is
to say that it wasn't scintillating) but much
more brilliant than our poor sun on earth. All
this light did not harm nor tire the eyes in any way.
In
addition to all these lights, all this splendor,
there shone forth concentrations or beams of
light and single rays of light from the body of the
Holy Virgin, from her clothes and from all over Her.
The voice of the Beautiful Lady was soft. It was enchanting, ravishing,
warming to the heart. It
satisfied, flattered every obstacle, it soothed and softened. It seemed to me I could never stop eating up Her beautiful voice, and my heart seemed to dance or want to go towards Her and melt
inside Her.
The eyes of the most Holy Virgin,
our Sweet Mother, cannot be described in human language. To speak of them, you
would need a seraph, you would need more than
that, you would need the language of God
Himself, of the God who formed the
immaculate Virgin, the masterpiece of
His omnipotence. The eyes of the majestic Mary appeared thousands of times more beautiful than the rarest brilliants, diamonds and precious stones. They shone like two suns; they were soft, softness itself, as clear as a mirror.
In her eves, you could see paradise. They drew you to Her, She seemed to want to draw and give Herself.
The more I looked, the more
I wanted to see; the
more I saw, the more I loved Her and I loved Her
with all my might.
The eyes of the beautiful
Immaculate One were
like the door to God's Kingdom, from which you could see all
than can elate the soul. When my eyes met
those of the Mother of God and of
myself, I felt inside me a happy revolution
of love and a declaration that I love Her and am melting with love. As we looked at each other, our eyes spoke to each other in their fashion, and I loved Her so much I could have kissed Her in the middle of Her eyes, which touched
my soul and seemed to draw it towards them
and make it melt into Hers. Her eyes set up a sweet trembling in all my being; and I was afraid to make the slightest movement which might
cause her the smallest displeasure.
Just the sight of the eyes
of the purest of Virgins
would have been enough to make the Heaven of a blessed
creature, enough to fill the soul with the
will of the Most High amid the events which occur in the course of
mortal life, enough to make the soul perform
continual acts of praise, of
thanksgiving, of atonement and expiation.
Just this sight focuses the soul on God, and makes it like a living-death,
looking upon all the things of this earth, even the things which seem the most serious, as nothing but children's playthings. The soul would want to hear no one speaking unless they spoke of God, and
of that which affects His Glory.
Sin is the only evil She sees on earth. She will die of grief unless God sustains Her.
Amen.
MARIA OF THE CROSS, Victim of Jesus
nee MELANIE CALVAT, Shepherdess of
La Salette
Castellamare,
21st of November 1878.
"I anticipate with great
pleasure the "Secret" circulating at full extent the more it
spreads the more it will arouse salutary fear and
numerous returns to God. Mary will bless those who help at
the diffusion as she absolutely wants this passed on
to all of the people. We are punished for having neglected
this absolute order from the Mother of God."
Extract
from a letter of Melanie relating to the Secret of La Salette.
Order
from:
THE
SERAPH
P.O.
Box 16194
Rochester,
NY 14616
[1] Neither Melanie nor Maximin understood French. The beautiful Lady now continues her speech in "patois".
[2] In a letter to Father
Combe, dated October 7th, 1899, Melanie
corrects these words in parenthesis which are her own, she says, and which she judges to be unclear and
inaccurate. "That is to
say", she writes, "that in those days, which only seem like twenty years ago, some perverted people (Italian:
malvages) had given themselves over to devotion to the demon of magic. These people would cause to appear in the eyes of the
curious, acquainted and theirs who had not led a
Christian way of life.
These supposedly resurrected individuals appeared in
heavenly glory. People known to have lived in the fear of God
appeared to be in horrible suffering, and urged their friends and
acquaintances not to follow in their footsteps, and they
preached a Gospel opposed to that of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It
seems that these bizarre occurrences may be put down to the
fashion for spiritualistic evocations and for certain spiritualistic and demoniac practices which no doubt will one day be brought
to light through a thorough examination
of the Luciferian archives of Free-Masonry."
In the same letter, Melanie takes care to explain that where it is said that people will be transported from one place to another, it must be understood as to be in rare cases only.
[3] In patois.
[4] "In which direction had the Holy Virgin turned when she rose?"— "That way (she pointed to the East)... I know that Rome is in that direction."(Conversation with Melanie, Miss des Brûlais, 8th Sept. 1849.)
[5] My Father's Good Lord: this is the Crucifix, this living crucifix which the beautiful Lady wears round Her neck, and which seemed to talk to Her. The Holy Virgin... Melanie does not seem to have doubted for a moment that it was Her, this comes out in the account, however, she does not dare to be the first to state it: it is for the Church of Jesus Christ to do so, she has this intuition. In effect, the next morning, it is the parish priest of La Salette who cries out, at the account of the two children:
"It was the Holy Virgin who appeared to you", and from the pulpit, will announce this to his parishioners, and to all the faithful ones among them.
[6] Today: 21st of November 1878, when this account was written.