The Apparitions of LaSalette: The Aftermath of LaSalette
part three
Installment Twelve
In this third part of the Apparitions of LaSalette in our on-going series of the "Age of Marian Apparitions" we shall
explore the trials and travails both young visionaries Melanie Mathieu and Maximim Giraud underwent in their attempts to carry out Our Lady's wishes. Like the events at Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje, the children's experience soon spread throughout the village and the parish priest was summoned to examine the children. This holy priest at once believed, realizing that the messages given were a true warning from Heaven, and that the people had strayed too far from God, because the shepherds were not exhorting them to live their faith fully. As the investigation spread, the people of the villages began to respond to Our Lady's message. Other phenomenon bore out the truth of their experience. The dried-up river bed of the mountain stream called the Petit Fontaine, where the apparition was first seen, was dry, and for as long as anyone could remember it had never been known to be dry during that season of the year. On the following day, scores of people witnessed water flowing through the Petit Fontaine, as in the time of a great thaw. From that day on it has continued to flow at every hour of the day. At an early stage in the investigation, this water was analyzed by experts and declared by the highest chemical expert to be perfectly pure and free from any ingredient capable of acting medicinally on the human body. This water, a precursor to Lourdes, soon became world famous and was sent to many different countries and considered an important agent in most of the cures connected with LaSalette. These cures prompted the Bishop of Grenoble to appoint a commission to inquire into the facts and in the summer of 1847, less than a year after the apparition, received the mark of approbation by two prelates - the Bishop of La
Rochelle and the Bishop of Langres. Both became spokesmen for promoting the messages and the approval
of LaSalette; the former writing a pamphlet on the apparitions and messages that had been revealed to that
point, the latter proclaiming it from the pulpit wherever he went, well before full Church approval. In fact, so
impressed with Our Lady's messages was the Bishop that he instituted in his diocese a strict penalty against
swearing, blasphemy and profanity on Sunday. It was backed by a Papal Brief. Despite their enthusiasm, one of
the most meticulous investigations in the history of the Church took place in respect LaSalette, but in 1851 the
Bishop of Grenoble Monsignor de Bruillard declared the apparition as credible and devotion to Mary under the title "Our Lady of LaSalette" was authorized. He approved of building a basilica near the site of the apparition
and in 1879 the shrine church was given the title of minor basilica by Pius IX's successor Pope Leo XIII.
The people did not realize the full content of the messages for Melanie could not reveal them until the year of
Our Lady's apparition at Lourdes, as the Blessed Mother had requested of her, "Melanie, what I am about to
tell you now will not always be a secret. You may make it public in 1858." Both Maximim and Melanie
stubbornly and faithfully refused to divulge their secrets. Though there were slight variations in the words of Our
Lady as revealed by Maximim compared to the Melanie's account, the substance was nevertheless the same
and the only difference in denoting details. The children were grilled again and again, often contradicting each
other in regard to Our Lady's "costume." Melanie would write later, "How could ignorant children, as we were, be
expected to find fitting words for the description of things so extraordinary? Probably what we described as
crown coif, chain, fichu, and apron hardly had the form of such. There was nothing of earth in the costume we
looked upon. Seen in the blaze of multi-colored rays, it presented a magnificent ensemble which we, in
describing, have diminished and materialized." Every kind of persuasion was employed to get the children to
reveal the secrets, but none were successful. In fact, after the apparition, Maximim applied to study for the
priesthood. One priest from Grenoble assured him he'd be accepted if he'd reveal the secret. "If I must tell my
secret to become a priest, then I shall never be one" Maximim concluded. It was in March 1851, nearly five years
after the apparition that Pope Pius IX expressed a desire to know the secrets Our Lady had imparted at
LaSalette. At first the children refused, but when finally introduced to the pontiff realized he was a special and
his unique position was where Our Lady wanted it to be revealed - so that it could be disseminated from the top
down. Thus they agreed to communicate their secrets but to him only. For a time Melanie was greatly
distressed fearing that she must either disobey Our Lady or lose her soul by being separated from the Church
for refusing the Holy Father. Yet when the time came, Melanie was filled with total peace and willingly obliged
the Pope. As she wrote, she interrupted twice to ask his holiness the meaning of infallibility and what the word
"antichrist" meant. It's interesting to note that although the Church does not depend on private revelation, Our
Lady's assurance of the Pope's infallibility prompted Pius IX to proclaim this dogma 34 years later in 1870.
While Maximim's secrets, as far as we know, dealt with Mercy and Consolation, Melanie's treated Divine
chastisement and scourges upon the world. As Pius IX read Maximim's account he remarked, "Here is all the
candour and simplicity of a child." As he read Melanie's his face was visibly emotional as he read the message
from Our Lady, "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." After
reading all the messages conveyed in writing by Melanie he remarked, "These are scourges with which France
is threatened, but she is not alone culpable. Germany, Italy, all Europe is culpable and merits chastisement. I
have less to fear from open impiety, than from indifference and human respect...it is not without reason that the
Church is called militant and here [pointing to himself] you behold its captain." The following day in an audience
with Cardinal Fornari and the two envoys from the Diocese of Grenoble, the Pope declared, "I am terrified by these prodigies; we have everything that is needed in our religion for the conversion of sinners; and when
Heaven employs such means the evil must be very great."
Little did he know how great the evil really was as we look back in retrospect. Her appearance in 1846 preceded
by two years the release of Karl Marx' Communist Manifesto. Had the people realized what was happening and Our Lady's warnings, it's possible it would have died a natural death, but alas it was not to be as the serpent of communism slithered into Europe and Russia during the din of revolutions throughout Europe. It was also in
1848 that agitation over central Europe broke out in open revolt at Vienna when the Austrian Emperor Frederick I was forced to turn over the city. Similar revolutions rocked other cities throughout Europe as the Industrial Revolution took hold. Below the surface Marx and Engels were setting the stage for cleaning up the spoils and introducing one of the most vile evils this world has ever known. Though the messages were revealed to some extent in 1858, it wasn't until 1878 that they were fully released with an imprimatur by Bishop Zola in November 1878. From that time on it was promoted through the publication Les Annales de Notre-Dame de la Salette. The secrets were clarified even more and reprinted ne varietur at Lyon in 1904 and disseminated by the LaSalette Fathers throughout the world being translated into English a few years later. In the next installment, our final on LaSalette we will deal with the effects of LaSalette in the 20th Century both for Holy Mother Church and the world.
NEXT WEEK: The Effects of LaSalette 150 years later part four
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