Our Lady of La Salette
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September 15, 2023This year, the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette (to which I belong) are commemorating the 177th Anniversary of the Apparition of Mary in a small village called La Salette in Grenoble, France, and the 75th Anniversary of our Missionary Presence in the Philippines.
It was on September 19, 1846, on the slopes of the mountain, when Maximin and Melanie saw a globe of fire near the small brook. Within that light, there was a beautiful Lady who was sitting, her head in her hands, her elbows on her knees, and she was weeping. The Lady rose slowly and said: “Come near, my children, do not be afraid. I am here to tell you Great News.” “She wept all the while she spoke to us,” the two children described later. Her concerns are those of a mother whose children endanger their souls. “Those who drive the carts cannot swear without using the name of my Son in vain. I have given you six days to work, but the seventh I have kept for myself, but you refuse to give it to me. In Lent, they go to butcher shops like dogs.” Her message is conversion and reconciliation. “If my people are converted, rocks and stones will turn into heaps of wheat, and potatoes will be self-sown.” Her plea reflects the missionary appeal of Christ: “My children, make this known to all my people.” Then, slowly she “melted away” within the light and the bright light vanished.
In 1851, the local bishop then, Philibert de Bruillard, formally approved public prayers and devotions to Our Lady of La Salette: “We judge that the Apparition of the Blessed Virgin to two shepherds, September 19, 1846, on a mountain in the Alps, in the parish of La Salette… shows all the signs of truth and the faithful have grounds for believing it indubitable and certain.” Consequently, in 1852, the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette were founded to serve as a “perpetual remembrance of Mary’s merciful apparition.” Eventually, the religious order spread all over the world and reaching the Philippines through the missionary efforts of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, US Province.
The visionaries were two poor and uneducated children. They were entrusted with a beautiful message of reconciliation with the self, others, nature and God. God calls us back to Him. When we sin, He is generous with his forgiveness. But we must also be willing to reconcile with others and extend the forgiveness God has extended to us, as illustrated in the Gospel parable this weekend. To refuse to forgive those who have sinned against us would be to exclude ourselves from receiving God’s forgiveness for our own sins.
This has a real application in Church life. The thing that is most likely to turn people away from the Church is when they do not find forgiveness here. In the Church, the gates of forgiveness must be always open to anyone who turns away from sin (CCC #982). Everyone must be tireless in forgiving each other both the petty and the serious; the charity of Christ demands it (CCC #2227).
