It was 1846 and France was suffering social and political upheaval. Catholic churches had been abandoned and the Sacraments neglected. But away from the cities, in a high meadow along the French Alps, two cattle herders reverently knelt before the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 

Eleven-year-old Maxim Giraud and fourteen-year-old Melanie Mathieu, employed separately by local farmers, met to graze livestock at a pasture in the small village La Salette. This particular Saturday afternoon, as the cattle grazed nearby, the two children shared bread and cheese alongside a ravine and then fell asleep. When they awoke Melanie noticed a light near the ravine and she called out to Maxim. Both beheld a luminous sphere, radiating like the sun, curiously unfolding before their eyes. Gradually they made out a woman seated with her face in her hands, weeping. She slowly arose and crossed her arms on her breast, her head some what inclined.

 

The children were drawn immediately to the lady's tears that adorned her face like perfectly cut diamonds glimmering the in the sun's rays. Her dynamic features were framed delicately in a white-satin headdress, on which rested a crown of roses, a bouquet in all shades of reds and pinks. A crucifix with pincers on one end and a hammer on the opposite end hung over her satin shawl, which was lined with more roses. The Madonna wore a long ivory dress embroidered in precious pearls and a yellow apron tied neatly to her waist. Wearing pearl slippers that peeked out from underneath her satin robe, she sheltered herself atop a bouquet of roses.

 

"Come to me, my children," she tenderly addressed the two who stood afar, motionless. "Be not afraid. I am here to tell you something of the greatest importance."

 

As soon as they were in touching distance of her, she began to speak with the urgency of an ending world:

 

"If my people will not obey, I shall be compelled to loose my Son's arm. It is so heavy, so pressing that I can no longer restrain it."

 

She told the children that her Son was especially concerned that people were not keeping holy the Sabbath, and that religion had lost its place in their country. "You will make this known to all my people," she repeated to them.

 

This they did, through five years of exhaustive interrogation by the Bishop of La Salette, who had commissioned several committees to research the apparition. As the children repeated their story time and time again in perfect consistency, people could not help but be convinced that the Blessed Virgin had appeared to the two. Churches began to to fill throughout the neighboring countryside and the Catholic faith resumed its former respect. A little more than five years after the apparition the Church officially approved of it and thirty years after that the basilica erected in the name of Our Lady of La Salette was completed. Maxim and Melanie were not canonized, but throughout the rest of their lives they served as witnesses to Our Lady's message.

 

THE MESSAGES OF LA SALETTE

Of all the Marian apparitions of the last two centuries, La Salette is not the best known although it must certainly be the most unique, not only for the "secrets" Our Lady told the two shepherd children, but because of the complexity involved in the series of Vatican interventions. The entire extract of the message to the children was not published until 1879, although Our Lady told Melanie that it could be publicized in 1858. Melanie published her part of the "secret" in Lecce Italy with the approval of the diocesan Bishop. The date of the original publication was Nov. 15 of that year. The apparition had occurred on September 19, 1846, the eve of the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, which was at that time being celebrated on the 20th of September, not the 15th the permanent day of the Feast.

 

(Source from: http://www.catholictradition.org/Mary/salette1.htm)

SOURCES CITED: 

APPARITION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN AT LA SALETTE, 

the Shepherdess of La Salette with Imprimatur 

and reprinted by the Association of the Children of Our Lady 

of La Salette, Beaupre, France; 

SECRETS OF LA SALETTE by the 101 Foundation, New Jersey; 

A SCIENTIST RESEARCHES MARY, 

Prof. Courtenay Bartholomew, M.D., 101 Foundation; 

SISTER MARY OF THE CROSS, Fr. Paul Gouin, 101 Foundation; 

MARY, Caroline Ebertshauser Et Al;

NOTE: THE 101 FOUNDATION HAS ASKED THAT THIS MESSAGE BE SPREAD