Who is it?

After five years of detailed and rigorous inquiry, the Church attest to the reality of the event and recognizes "The Beautiful Lady": she is Mary, the mother of Jesus, she who has been missioned at the foot of the Cross to be the mother of all those who search and doubt, who journey in faith. Always present to her children, she comes to warn their hearts, to challenge consciences in the face of a godless world, a world without justice and without love. With vigor and with tenderness, she raises us up and puts us on the road together, on the path of her Son Jesus.

The story told by Maximin Giraud and Melanie Calvat travelled everywhere and profoundly touched a world in need of reconciliation. To all those who are or should be thirsting for justice, it points to the Gospel fount of living water.

Here is the story the children told the world

A day in Autumn

In mid-September, 1846, Pierre Selme, a peasant of the  Abladins had  to find a boy to replaced his shepherd who had become ill. He sought out Giraud the wheelwright in the Corps and tells him, "Let me have you little Maximin for a few days..." "Memin, a shepherd? He is to much of a scatterbrain!" replied Giraud. There is some give and take between the two, and on September 14, Maximin walked to the Ablandis. On the 17th he saw Melanie there.

On the 18th, they are watching the flocks in a communal pasture around Mont Planeau. That afternoon, Maximin made an attempt at conversation with the silent Melanie. They discover that they are both from Corps. They talk a while and decide to "pasture" together at the same spot the next day.

On the mountain slopes

Early on September 19, 1846, the two children climb the slopes of Mont sous-les-Baisses, each urging four cows up to the mountain slopes.  besides his own flock, Maximin had a goat and his dog Loulou.  Sunlight flooded the Alpine slopes.  Far down the mountain the Angelus bells rang out from the village church.  This was a sign for the shepherd to lead their cows toward the "flock spring", a small pool formed by the brook as it tumbled down the Sezia ravine.  Then they goaded the cows toward an adjoining field on the slopes of Mount Gargas.  The animals grazed quietly in the hot sun.