In this second part of the Apparitions of LaSalette in our on-going series of the "Age of Marian Apparitions" we
shall examine why, when the young visionaries Melanie and Maximim first beheld the Blessed Mother, she was weeping.
Following is the account of what Melanie wrote regarding the "Secrets of LaSalette": When Melanie first
discoverd "the beautiful lady", Our Lady, dressed in the traditional garb of that period, had her face in her hands
as tears flowed. Our Lady, after greeting the children, immediately replied: "If my people do not wish to submit
themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son. It is so heavy and weights me down so much I can no
longer keep hold of it.
"I have suffered all the time for the rest of you! If you do not wish my Son to abandon you, I must take it upon
myself to pray for this continually. And the rest of you think little of this. In vain you will pray, in vain you will act,
you will never be able to make up for the troubles I have taken over for the rest of you.
"I gave you six days to work, I kept the seventh for myself, and no one wishes to grant it to me. This is what
weighs down the arm of my Son so much.
"Those who drive carts cannot speak without putting the name of my Son in the middle. These are the two things
which weigh down the arm of my Son so much. If the harvest is spoiled, it is only because of the rest of you. I
made you see this last year with the potatoes, you took little account of this. It was quite the opposite when you
found bad potatoes, you swore oaths, and you included the name of my Son. They will continue to go bad, at
Christmas there will be none."
One can imagine the confusion Melanie experienced. Here was a twelve-year old girl totally naive to the world
and what Our Lady was speaking of. The Blessed Mother was responding to all the cursing the farmers had
done rather than praying, even working on Sundays. Melanie and Maximim were also uneducated children not
really familiar with the French language for their framework dialect was that of Patois. Melanie especially had a
problem interpreting the word "potatoes" which in French is pommes de terre translated "apples of the earth."
Melanie took it literally to mean "apples." Our Blessed Mother read Melanie's thoughts and heart and repeated
thus:
"You do not understand, my children. I will tell it to you another way. If the harvest is spoiled, it does not seem to affect you. I made you see this last year with the potatoes. You took little account of this. It was quite the opposite when you found bad potatoes, you swore oaths, and you included the name of my Son. They will continue to go bad and at Christmas, there will be none left.
"If you have corn, you must not sow it. The beasts will eat all that you sow. And all that grows will fall to dust when you thresh it. A great famine will come. But before the famine comes, children under the age of seven will begin to tremble and will die in the arms of those who hold them. The others will do penance through hunger. The nuts will go bad, the grapes will become rotten."
By now Melanie and Maximim had to be totally flustered. Just a few hours ago they were frolicking in total
innocent bliss on the mountain side with their imaginary games of "Paradise"; now it seemed from what this
beautiful lady was exclaiming and prophesizing that their world was coming apart. It didn't seem fair that they
were being "called on the carpet" for the wrongs of others, but God works in mysterious ways and little did they
realize, especially Melanie, how the release of her secrets would confirm everything this beautiful Lady would
say on that September 18th day back in 1846 in the Alpine Mountains of Southern France.
After the Mother of God had explained the famine, Melanie realized the beautiful Lady was still speaking, but she
could not hear her because she was imparting a "secret" to Maximim. This is consistent with other apparitions,
most notably Medjugorje where Our Lady speaks to all of them at once or one at a time where the others can
see but not hear the words of the Gospa. When Mary had completed her words to the young boy, she turned her
attention to Melanie and Maximim was then unable to hear what she conveyed to his new-found friend which
was: "Melanie, what I am about to tell you now will not always be secret. You may make it public in 1858."
Melanie would be an adult by then, 26 years old to be exact, and it must have been very difficult for this young
teenager to suppress the urge to tell someone all that Our Lady foretold on this day, but with the grace of God
she persevered. It's interesting to note that Our Lady asked these messages to be released not immediately
but after the declaration of the Dogma of her Immaculate Conception in 1854 and during the same year as her
subsequent appearances at Lourdes in 1858, quite possibly as a confirmation of both apparition sites.
What Our Lady went on to tell Melanie confirmed why this beautiful Lady was weeping so severely for as
Melanie would reveal, the secrets would fulfill everything that has taken place over the last 150 years with even
more to come. For the secrets themselves, see the feature section of this and the last issue and future issues.
Suffice it to say that though Our Lady appeared only once, the Mother of God's message at LaSalette was the
most powerful and all-encompassing warning of any of her apparitions prior to and even since 1846. If one
doubts that, read the LaSalette messages and realize Our Lady's prophecy of the great potato famine, the
Napoleonic Reign and Fall, Pope Leo XIII's verification of satan's unleashing and the institution of the Prayer to St. Michael, the rise of Freemasonry, World War I, the Hitler regime and World War II, subsequent wars, the insidious evolution of Modernism and the New Age movement, Abortion, Aids, the One World Order, the Three Days of Darkness, and ultimately the total moral demise of Europe, America and the entire world, and, yes, the Church - the one True Faith.
When Our Lady had finished imparting the secrets to Melanie, she said to both Melanie and Maximim: "If they
convert, the stones and rocks will change into wheat and potatoes will be found sown in the earth. Do you say
your prayers properly, my children?" "Oh, no, Madame, not so much," both children sheepishly admitted. "Oh! My children, you must say them morning and evening," Our Lady asserted. "When you can do no more, say a Pater and an Ave Maria; and when you have the time to do better, you will say more." After a few more messages there followed a brief conversation in which Our Lady reminded Maximim of the time he had seen
spoiled wheat when, with his father, he had been in Corps. Then the Blessed Virgin ended her discourse to
these two simple, uneducated children with these words: "AND SO, MY CHILDREN, YOU WILL PASS THIS ON
TO ALL MY PEOPLE."
This beautiful Lady then crossed the stream and, after two more steps, without turning back towards the
children who were following her, she repeated: "AND SO, MY CHILDREN, YOU WILL PASS THIS ON TO ALL
MY PEOPLE." She then walked on, her feet touching nothing but the tips of the grass which did not bend.
Melanie followed her closely, so drawn to her by the indescribable love which exuded from this Heavenly visitor.
The Blessed Mother turned and looked at Melanie and then she rose imperceptibly from the ground to a height
of around four feet. For a split second the Virgin Mary looked up to Heaven, then down on the earth to her right
and then her left. She looked again at Melanie with eyes so soft, so kind and good, that Melanie felt she was
drawing her inside her. Then slowly Our Lady disappeared little by little. Melanie states that the light which
surrounded the beautiful Lady seemed to take the place of the parts of her body, a similar description reported
in numerous apparitions since then. It was as if she melted into the Light. This was the last time either of the
children were to see the Blessed Mother during their lifetime.
In the next installment we shall cover the ensuing events that occurred as the children sought to pass this on to
all Our Lady's children young and old in part three of the Apparitions of LaSalette.
NEXT WEEK: The Apparitions of LaSalette: The Warnings from Our Lady of LaSalette part three