The seers of La Salette

Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud · The Our Lady who cries (France, 1846)

Two poor shepherds from the Alps who in 1846 appeared a "beautiful lady" sitting and crying, who spoke to them of God's abandonment and asked them for conversion, penance and prayer.

Who were they?

Mélanie Calvat (1831-1904), born in Corps, and Maximin Giraud (1835-1875) were two children of very humble families who worked as pastors holding foreign cattle in the mountain of La Salette, in the diocese of Grenoble. They had little religious training; they knew little of each other. Neither was canonized.

The Apparition

On September 19, 1846, in the middle of the afternoon, Mélanie (about 14-15 years old) and Maximin (about 11 years old) saw a glowing light in a shone and, in the midst of it, a "beautiful lady" sitting, with her face in her hands, crying. It was a deChristian France, of blasphemy and abandonment of Sunday. The apparition was recognized by the Bishop of Grenoble and devotion to Our Lady of La Salette, approved by Pius IX.

The words of the Virgin

The Lady arose and spoke tenderly to them: "Come near, my children, be not afraid; I am here to announce a great news to you." Wailing, he told them that he could no longer hold the arm of his Son: "If my people do not want to submit, I will be forced to release my Son's arm; it is so strong and so heavy that I can no longer hold it." He regretted the blasphemy and the fact that Sunday was not sanctified, and announced, on a conditional basis, bad crops, hunger and diseases if there was no conversion. And he asked them for simple and persevering prayer: "When you cannot do more, pray a Father and a Avemaria; and when you have time, pray more." He also entrusted a secret to each one. (The long and apocalyptic versions that Mélanie published in 1879 were not approved by the Church and should be distinguished from the original message.)

Anecdotes and afterlife

She was moved by the detail of the "crying" Virgin to people, a central image of La Salette. Maximin and Mélanie had difficult and itinerant later lives, marked by attention and controversy around secrets; Maximin died in Corps in 1875 and Mélanie in Italy in 1904. The agricultural pests and the hunger that France experienced in the following years were seen as confirmation of the message.

Fruit

In the mountain was raised a great basilica, today the goal of pilgrimage. The Salette consolidated a spirituality of reconciliation and penance, and gave rise to the congregation of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette.