The Virgin of La Salette or Notre Dame de La Salette, is a Marian invocation that appeared on September 19, 1846 to two French children in a small town called Salette-Fallavaux, in that place a Sanctuary was also built, much visited by pilgrims. , but we are going to tell you more about it in this article, so do not stop reading it.
Our Lady of Salette
The virgin appeared to two shepherds named Mélanie Calvat and Maximino Giraud, 15 and 11 years old respectively, they left on September 19, 1846 with their flocks and at three in the afternoon on the mountain of Salette-Fairvaux, they saw a light intense, stronger than the sun from which a beautiful woman was seen who was crying and approaching them. They stated that she was sitting and crying with her hands on her face.
The children called her the beautiful lady, she then gets up and speaks to them in French and in Patois, an Occitan dialect, which was the children's language, she tells them that she is crying because there is no mercy in society and they He asks them to renounce two serious sins that were becoming common at the time: blasphemy and not taking Sunday as a day of rest to go to mass.
He tells the children that there will be a great punishment if people do not change their attitude and gives the promise of divine mercy to those who do change, finally asking them to pray a lot to him, do their penance and spread his message. They stated that the light that surrounded her and then them also came from a cross that she had on her chest, which was surrounded by a hammer and tongs, on her shoulders she had a chain and roses on the sides. Her head, waist and feet were surrounded by many roses, her clothes were completely white and she had a ruby colored shawl with a golden apron, when she left she went up the hill and disappeared into her same light.
Investigations were made for five years where Bishop Grenoble, Philibert de Bruilard, authenticated this apparition, commissioning it to two theologians who investigated several of the healings that manifested, these were presented in more than eighty different places in France, so more bishops were commissioned to investigate them, many said that their cures were typical of the Virgin of La Salette and others because they had drunk water from the source where it appeared.
Hundreds of miracles were recorded, later Pope Pius IX approved the devotion to the Virgin with the name of Our Lady of La Salette. He asked the two shepherds to send their account of the secrets that the virgin revealed to him, once the pope himself read them and said that if people did not repent, the world would perish.
Secrets of the Virgin
The shepherds affirmed that the Virgin gave them important secrets, the first of which was revealed only to Mélanie Calvat on September 25, 1846, in the same place where she appeared, the second of which was told to the young Maximino Giraud that On the same day, the Virgin told them that they should not tell the secret told to anyone, not even among themselves, until the year 1858, which would be when they would be revealed. The two secrets were written and sent to Pope Pius IX in the year 1851.
It is said that Mélanie's secret was written by herself in 1851 and another version in 1879 which was published in Lecce, Italy, with the approval of the bishop of the city, but this is not among those approved. the church since it was disclosed later. It is not known what impression the pope had with these revelations, nor why two versions of the secret emerged.
The truth is that Mélanie Calvat died after a wandering life in Altamura, Italy on December 15, 1904 and her friend Maximino Giraud also had a life full of unhappiness and had to return to his hometown where he died in March 1875.
Message of the Virgin
The message of the Virgin was that there would be a divine punishment beginning with the loss of the crops, this warning would be given in a year in which the winter in Europe was one of the most difficult that France and England experienced, causing a great famine that lasted Several months. This event was revered for the long period it lasted, it also left a clear message that they should follow the commandments that Christ had given, that despite the great darkness and famine that there would be in Europe, the church considered the message as one of hope, and that this is nourished by the intercession of the Virgin who is the mother of humanity.
Miracles
There were many miracles of the Virgin of La Salette, some of them impressive and others not so much, but on March 4, 1849, the Archbishop of Sens, in the company of other ecclesiastics, prepared a report on an investigation into the miraculous healing of Antoinette Bollenat , who lived in Avallon, the healing corresponded to the year 1847, which after making a novena to the Virgin of La Salette, miraculously healed from her illness, they questioned several people, and determined the miracle of healing for the glory of God and of the Blessed Virgin.
The Bishop of Verdun, Luis Rossat also testified about a miraculous healing that occurred on April 1, 1849, and which remains one of the most reliable to date, in the person of a young man named Martin, who that student of the Major Seminary, this miracle was accredited to Our Lady of La Salette by the Superior of the Seminary, the bursar and three professors.
Martin was a minor cleric who could barely stand on his left leg, as he suffered from constant pain that prevented him from following the activities of the rest of the community, so he could not rise to another order until he fully recovered.
On April 1, he began to pray a novena to Our Lady of La Salette and his spiritual director gave him a bottle containing water from the La Salette fountain. At seven o'clock at night, the young man said he could walk well and went down and up. running up the stairs, making a big impression on the other seminarians.
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