In a small town of 300 inhabitants by the name of La Salette – Fallavaux (Isere France), the Blessed Virgin came to speak to Maximim Giraud, an eleven-year-old child, and Melanie Calvat, who was fifteen. They didn’t know each other well and had actually only been acquainted for a few days when the apparitions began.
The Manifestation of Our Lady of La Salette
The children were watching animals on the mountainside as cowherds, when around 3:30 p.m. a beautiful lady appeared to them. She would appear on what they called "paradises," which were heaps of stones in the form of altars covered in flowers. She pointed them in the direction of a place called "The Little Fountain" which they hurriedly rushed off to.
Immediately, they saw a beautiful and radiant globe of light which opened up and after the event, they saw a woman sitting on the stones. Her hair was pulled back by a diadem and a wreath of roses. A white kerchief also covered in roses lay on her head and covered her shoulders.
She wore a gleaming white dress which seemed to emanate the essence of gold. A crucifix was adorned around her neck and she seemed to also wear a chain which bore great weight upon her shoulders.
The Message of Our Lady of La Salette
The message received by the children at La Salette was lengthy. It was a message of chastisements to come if sinners did not convert.
But the Blessed Virgin was very specific, saying, “If my people do not willingly submit, I shall be forced to allow the arm of my Son to weight down! For how long a time have I been grieved because of you. I have had to pray unceasingly lest my Son abandon you. You can never understand how much sorrow I have known.”
Due to the profundity of her message, Our Lady of La Salette is known as the "Weeping Virgin."
In her admonitions, she spoke of simple things like the failure to observe God on Sundays, and people swearing left and right with impatience and ingratitude. She spoke also of gluttony and how much it disgusted the divine majesty, referring to men who “devour meat like dogs.” She said that crops would fail if souls were to continue down the path they were following but that “If sinners will be converted, the very stone and rocks will be changed into heaps of grain, and the potato fields will be rich and will bear abundantly.”
She admonished the children to pray every morning and to go to Mass whenever possible. And finally, she sent private messages to the Pope of which very little is known except that it appeared to be a profound correction of the Papacy and ecclesiastics in their contradictory ways of life.
Pope Pius IX read the note and was noted to acknowledge fault in all that was pointed out to him about his own failings and that of the Church. He always approved the happenings at La Salette.
Although the contents of those messages were never put into public circulation, they were allowed to be published for the purpose of priests. Pope Pius IX felt that it could do all priests much good to read them.
Another more recent apparition known as Our Lady of America had many warnings to give about peoples' sinful lives. And in the apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes, the Blessed Virgin offered a sign of hope.
Sources:
- Those who Saw Her: Apparitions of Mary, by Catherine M. Odell.
- Catherine Laboure and the Modern Apparitions of Our Lady, by Abbe Omer Englebert.
- Miraculous Images: Photographs Containing God's Fingerprints, by Marilynn Hughes.
- Medjugorje: Light for the World, by Pietro Jacopini.
- Our Lady Comes to Garabandal - By Joseph A. Pelletier, A.A.
- The Wonder of Guadalupe, by Francis Johnston.
- The Glories of Czestochowa and Jasna, To the Priests Our Lady's Beloved Sons. by the Marian Movement of Priests.
- Our Lady of America, by Sister Mildred Mary Neuzil.
- The Thunder of Justice, by Ted and Maureen Flynn.
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