My spiritual journey is an attempt to respond to a God who is at the very heart of my being. It is a journey within ... explored often through the external journey of people, circumstances, history, the give and take of daily life. In many ways it is a journey without a road map. Yes, there are guideposts ... the sacred scriptures and myths of the word's great religions, the wisdom of classic and modern philosophers and theologians, the traditions of those institutions that have sought to be a sign of the way, to illuminate the path for humankind. Ultimately, however, each of us is an individual, answerable to the deepest murmuring of our conscience and heart. The road map for me is discovered in walking the path. This is at once a daily invitation and a daily challenge. I find T.S.Eliot's expression of this challenging journey most apt. "We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time." With this paper, I wish to look at some conscious murmuring of my heart's journey and explore what may be inspirational and foundational, nourished by the La Salette experiences on that journey.

Contrary to their habits, the two children lay down on the grass...and fell asleep. The September sun was relaxing and the sky was cloudless. The chattering brook highlighted the stillness of the mountains. These were quiet moments... Mélanie woke up with a start and shook Maximin! "Mémin, Mémin, get up!... let's go look for our cows. I don't know where they are!" Quickly they climb the hillock facing the Gargas. From that vantage point they could see the surrounding area, and the cows right there, grazing peacefully. The two children were relleved. Mélanie took a few steps down the hillock. Half-way, she froze, stunned, and let her shepherd's stick fall. "Mémin, look over there, a light!" Near the small brook on one of those stone benches... there was a globe of fire. "It's as if the sun had fallen there!" But the sun still shone in a cloudless sky. Maximin ran to Mélanie's side yelling, "Where is it? Where is it?" Mélanie pointed to the bottom of the ravine where they had just rested. Maximin came to her, frozen with fear an dais, "Hold on to your stick! I am keeping mine and if it comes close I'm giving it a good whack!" The light stirred, moved and swirled. Words failed the children to describe the rush of life that streamed from the flery globe. A woman appeared within the light; she was sitting, her head in her hands, her elbows on her knees, in deepest grief.

 

The Lady rose slowly. The children had not moved. She spoke to them in French: <<Come near, my children, do not be afraid. I am here to tell you great news.>> They approached the Lady. They stared at her. She was still crying. "She seemed like a lady that her children had beaten and who had run away into the mountains to cry". The beautiful Lady was tall. She was all light. She was dressed like the women of that region: a long dress, long apron tied at the waist, a shawl crossed and knotted in the back. On her head she wore a peasant bonnet. There were roses in a crown around her read, around her shawl and her shoes. Light shimmered like a flery diadem on her forehead. A chain seemed to weigh heavily on her shoulders. A finer lind-chain held a brilliant crucifix on her breast, with a hammer on one side and tongs on the other.

 

Maximin Giraud was born at Corps, on August 26, 1835. His mother, Anne-Marie Templier hails from this same region. His father, Germain Giraud is from a neighbouring district. The mother dies leaving Maximin, 17 months old, and a daughter, Angélique, who is eight years of age. Shortly after, Mr Giraud remarries, Maximin receives little attention: the wheelwright is at his workshop or at the bar. His wife is not interested in this high-strung, careless little urchin who is always out exploring the streets of Corps, watching the stagecoaches and the old farm wagons, or roaming the countryside with his goat and his dog. Under a mop of black hair there is constant mischief brewing, a quick eye and an agile tongue. During the Apparition, while the beautiful Lady speaks to Mélanie, Maximin twirls his hat on his walking stick, or, with the other end of his staff, pokes pebbles toward the feet of the Lady. "Not a single one touched her!" he would calmly reply to questioners. Feeling appreciated he responds in kind: treated roughly he uses the same currency. Maximin had a difficult childhood. During the three years following the Apparition his half-brother Jean-Francóis, his step-mother Marie Court, and his father Giraud the wheelwright, all died. His mother's brother, the "Oncle Templier", a rough and calculating man, becomes Maximin's guardian. School progress is slow. Sister said Thècle who keeps an eye on him calls him "perpetual motion". Constant pressure from pilgrims and busybodies don't moke Maximin's life any easier. A few visionary partisans of the so-called son of Lou'si XVI want to use him for political purposes. Maximin hoodwinks them with gibberish. Against the advice of the parish priest and defying the orders of the bishop of Grenoble, they bring the boy to Ars. Maximin does not enjoy their company but enjoys the ride and the chance to see new sights. The unpredictable Father Raymond, the Curé's assistant, greets them. He calls La Salette a hoax and the children liars. During the morning of September 25. 1850, the Curé of Ars meets with Maximin in the sacristy, then in the confessional, but without hearing his confession. What might the frustrated Maximin have told him? The upshot of the meeting was that for many years the holy priest will never cease to doubt and to suffer. Following the decree of September 19, 1851, he will refer everyone to the judgment of the bishop. Many years pass before he can give his own acquiescence and recover his peace. Maximin protested that he had never recanted, but he was at pains to explain his behaviour. A mere listing of the places Maximin travelled to makes one realize to what extent the boy was exploited. From the Rondeau minor seminary to the Grande Chartreuse, from the rectory of Seyssin to Rome. From Dax and Airesur-Adour to Vésinet, then to Tonnerre college, to Petit Jouy en Josas near Versailles and Paris. Maximin was in turn a seminarian, a nursing-home employee, a medical student. Failing the state examinations he got a job in a pharmacy. He enlisted in teh pontifical zouaves but canceled his contract after a six-month stint and returned to Paris. The newspaper La Vie Parisienne published an attack against la Salette and the two children. Maximin protestes and the newspaper prints a correction. In 1866 he publishes a short work "My Profession of Faith in the Apparition of Our Lady of La Salette" ("Ma profession de foi sur l'apparition de Notre-Dame de La Salette"). It was during this time that Mr and Mrs Jourdain, a couple devoted to him, bring a measure of stability into his life, and, at great financial risk, clear his debts. Maximin enters into a partnership with a liquor dealer who uses his now famous name to increase sales. The improvident Maximin gets nothing out of it. In 1870 he is drafted and assigned to Fort Barrau in Grenoble. Following this he returns to Corps and is joined there by the Jourdains. The three live poorly and are helped by the fathers of the shrine with the approval of the bishop. In November Maximin makes a pilgrimage to the shrine. In the presence of a rapt audience he repeats the story of La Salette as he had done on the very first day. This would be the last time be would do so. On February 2nd he visits the parish church, also for the last time. On the evening of March 1 st, Maximin receives the sacrament of reconciliation and holy Communion, drinking a little La Salette water to swallow the wafer. Five minutes later he surrenders his spirit to God. He had not reached forty. His remains lie in the cemetery of Corps, but his heart rests within the La Salette basilica. He wanted to underscore once again his love for La Salette: "I believe firmly, even to the shedding of my blood, in the fomous apparition of the most Blessed Virgin on the holy mountain of La Salette, on September 19, 1846, the apparition that I have defended in word and suffering... It is with this spirit that I give my heart to Our Lady of La Salette". Maximin had nothing, left to give but his loyalty and his faith in the church. In the person of the Beautiful Lady the always lovable and restless boy had finally found affection in the peace of God.

 

She saw the light of day at Corps in the midst of a large family on November 7, 1831. Her father Pierre, a pit sawyer by trade took odd jobs. The mother, Julie Barnaud gave birth to ten children. Mélanie was the fourth. The family's poverty was so complete that the young were sometimes dispatched to beg on the street. At a very young age Mélanie was hired out to tend the neighbours' cows. From the spring to the fall of 1846 she worked for Jean-Baptiste Pra at Les Ablandins, one of the hamlets of the village of La Salette. Prá's neighbour was Pierre Selme and it is he who hired the restless Maximin for a one week stint to replace his own sick shepherd. In the presence of her chatterbox companion. Mélanie, already timid and taciturn, was on her guard. The children had some common traits. Both were born in Corps but had never met, probably because of Melanie's long absences. Both spoke the local dialect and fragmented French. They had neither schooling nor religious instruction, could neither read or write. Melanie's father was on a never ending quest, for employment. Her mother, overwhelmed with work and the cares of her brood could give each one very little affection. At the time of the apparition Maximin and Mélanie were financially, intellectually and affectively among the poorest of the poor. They were totally dependent, they would be profoundly and definitively stamped by the apparition, which will nevertheless leave their personalities intact. Mélanie was very different from her new companion. She tived sit strangers and was away from her family except for the winter months when she lived with them in cold and hunger. That she had become timid and withdrawn should not surprise anyone. "She always answered with a simple yes or no", said Baptiste Pra, her employer. Still, she responded clearly and simply to questions concerning La Salette. She resided four years with the Sisters of Providence. Her memory was poor and she had still less aptitude for study than Maximin. As early as November 1847, her directress feared "that the celebrity that had been thrust upon her might make her conceited." Surrounded with concern and consideration on the part of visitors when she became a postulant, then a novice in the same Congregation, she held fast to her own opinions. For this reason, the new Bishop of Grenoble, while recognizing her piety and devotion, would refuse to admit her to vows "in order to train her... in the practice of Christian humility and simplicity". Unfortunately, Mélanie then took to lending a willing ear to "troubled and sick individuals," to people whose minds were obsessed with popular prophecies, pseudo-apocalyptic and pseudo-mystical theories. This would affect her for the rest of her life. To give credence to her pronouncements she linked them to the secret she had received from the Beautiful Lady. Even a cursory review points to immutable differences between what Mélanie says and writes, and the words and signs Mary gave at La Salette. Mélanie's problems and phantasms became the epicentre of her discourse. Through her prophecies she reaps revenge on those who oppose her projects. She thus expresses her rejection of a society and a hostile environment. She recreates an imaginary past where the frustrations of her childhood are effectively exorcised. As early as 1854, Bishop Ginoulhiac wrote: "the predictions attributed to Mélanie... have no basis in fact: they have no importance with regard to La Salette... they have come after La Salette and have nothing to do with it". The bishop added: "The children were given the broadest freedom to amend or deny any statement they may have made, but they have never altered anything on the veracity of the event of La Salette". With this in mind, Bishop Ginoulhiac, on September 19, 1855, proclaimed the following from the Holy Mountain itself: "The mission of the shepherds is herewith ended, that of the Church begins." Unfortunately, Mélanie pursued her prophetic meanderings. Later, these were orchestrated by the blazing talent of a Leon Bloy and would become a "Melanist" movement allegedly stemming from La Salette, but lacking any foundation except the unverifiable pronouncements of Mélanie. All this is far distant from the historical foundations of the Apparition. The content of these so-called prophecies, despite their religious vencer, have nothing to do with religious truth as taught by the Church, and recalled by Mary at La Salette. The subject matter is no longer faith but the unstable, questionable and sterile terrain of personal assumptions. This type of writing alienates faith instead of strengthening it. In 1854, a English priest brought Mélanie to England. She entered the Carmelite convent of Darlington the following year: she took temporary vows there in 1856, but left the convent in 1860. She tried religious life again with the Sisters of Compassion of Marseille. After a stay in their convent of Cephalonia (Greece), and a short sojourn at the Carmelite convent of Marseille, she returned to the Compassion for a brief time. Following a short stay at Corps and La Salette, she went to live at Castellamare di Stabia, near Naples in Italy. She resided there seventeen years, writing her "secrets" as well as a rule for a future foundation. The Vatican urged the local bishop to forbid her this type of publication, but she persisted in their search for approbation and an imprimatur, even extracting a hearing from a papal official, Bishop Lepidi. This, however, never constituted even a veiled approval. The authority invoked by Mélanie is incompetent in the matter. After a stay at Cannes in the south of France, Mélanie travelled to Chalon-sur-Saône, seeking to found a community with the sponsorship of the Canon de Brandt of Amiens. Eventually she entered into litigation with Bishop Perraud, the ordinary of Autumn. The Holy See, brought into the matter, decided in favour of the bishop. In 1892, Mélanie returned to a place near Lecce, Italy, then journeyed to Messina in Sicily on the invitation of Canon Annibale di Francia. Following a few months in the Piedmont region, she was invited by the abbé Combe, pastor of Diou, a priest muche taken up with politico-religious prophecies, to settle in the Allier region. She finished a contrived autobiography, wherein she created an extraordinary childhood enriched with pseudo-mystical wanderings, her own imaginings and the chimera provided by her correspondents. The message Mélanie attempts to link to La Salette during this period hes nothing whatever in common with the testimony she gave about the Apparition in the early years. When the conversation returns to the event of September 19, 1846, she reverts without fail to the simplicity and the clarity of her early narrative, which agrees with that of Maximin. She gave an instance of this on a visit to the Holy Mountain on September 18-19, 1902. She returned to Altamura, near Bari in southern Italy and died there on December 14, 1904. Her remains ar buried under a marble column with a bas-relief depicting the Virgin welcoming the shepherdess of La Salette into heaven. One thing is certain: at the close of her confused erros, there is one point from which Mélanie never departed: the testimony she and Maximin gave on the evening of September 19, 1846, in Baptiste Pra's kitchen at Les Ablandins. She held firm throughout the inquiry directed by Bishop Philibert de Bruillard, as well as that of the confirming investigation conducted by Bishop Ginoulhiac. Throughout a difficult lifetime, Mélanie remained poor an devout, ever faithful to her first testimony.

 

The Beautiful Lady spoke to the two shepherds:- "She wept all the while she spoke to us", said Maximin and Mélanie later. Together, or separately, the two children repeated the same words with slight variations that never affected the sense. Whether her questioners were pilgrims, public officials or ecclesiastics, investigators or journalists, friendly, neutral or hostile, they all heard the same message: