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From Mount Tabor to the Mount of La Salette
As we experience this Lenten season, it is well for us to reflect again on Mary’s message at La Salette. It is similar to our taking up the New Testament again. Each time we do this, we discover fresh beauty and new topics for meditation. It is striking to see in La Salette an echo of he Son, Jesus himself. It is not our intention to exhaust every detail of Mary’s visit but merely to point out a few of the similarities in the hope that this may aid earnest hearts in their own Lenten meditation.
Places of Solitude
The scene of Mary’s message strikes most readers first and it seems odd to some people that Mary should choose so remote a place for her Apparition. Yet she had done this very thing at the apparitions of Lourdes (1858), Pontmain (1871) and then at Fatima (1917).We learn from the Scriptures that Christ loved the mountains and solitude. It was Mount Thabor, high above the country surrounding Lake Genesareth which he chose for his Transfiguration.
The Joyful Sisters of La Salette in Lamastre, France
The Changing History of the Area and their Religious Sisters
One the La Salette Sisters with a group of parishioners on a nearby mountaintop Lamastre is a commune of about 2,300 people in the Ardèche department in southeastern France, just west of Grenoble and a good distance from the Italian border. The Benedictines of St. Chaffres, came to Macheville in 961. They built and fortified the priory and occupied it until 1593. The priory of Macheville became important. In 1587, the surroundings of the priory were the scene of bloody massacres but this town resisted the assaults of the Huguenots. In 593, the priory was confiscated by the state. After the French Revolution , the Sisters of Saint Joseph settled in the priory and established a school there. However in 2011, these sisters also left the priory.
Then in 2012, the inhabitants of Lamastre gratefully welcomed the Sisters of Our Lady of La Salette.
Helping the Younger Members of the Town
The sisters are involved with the youth in their religious education and they assist the local chaplain of their youth group.Of course, the sisters lead the preparation f\or the various sacraments and accompany the children as they discover the meaning of their own life. By giving of our time and attentive listening, we enrich each other as we move on the path of belief in the Lord.
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La Salette In Catumbela, Angola
At La Salette, Mary said: “You will make this known to all my people.”
It was 1946, the year of the centenary of the Apparition at La Salette. Eight Swiss La Salette Missionaries were commissioned by the General Council to go to Angola. It was therefore necessary to give the means to these missionaries who said "yes" to this call!
(from left) Fr. Paulino N'Guli, M.S. and Fr. Joaquim Hatewa, M.S.One of these means was first of all learning Portuguese, the official language of Angola. For this, the first missionaries were sent to Lisbon to study Portuguese for three months. Once the language was sufficiently acquired, they took a ship and arrived in Angola on May 31, 1946. Angola was still under the yoke of colonization. They arrived in the territory of New Lisbon.The bishop of the Diocese of Benguela then entrusted them with the mission to Ganda ... and the bishop of the neighboring Diocese of Lubango in southwest Angola, entrusted them with that of Tchilengue! They gave all their energy to it without counting the cost.
How did they get to Catumbela?
The Mission-Parish of Saint Anthony was founded in 1955 and entrusted to Fr. Manuel Jacinto. The bishop of Benguela entrusted this mission to the Missionaries of La Salette on July 11, 1971. To fulfill this mission, the Superior appointed Frs. Leonard Roos and Emil Frick. The bishop then appointed a young priest, Joaquim Hatewa, who became a missionary at La Salette in 1972. The zeal of these two missionaries was manifested by their apostolic activity in a territory of 4,000 square kilometers or 1,500 square miles, with communities awaiting the Word of God.La Salette Missionaries in Salmata, Italy
Our Retreat and Conference Center
Shrine Church with its La Salette Facsimile on the hillside We have accommodations which can welcome up to 300 people, especially young people. We have a large open-area park which welcomes numerous Church associations and groups to rest, meditate and learn. Our Center also welcomes cultural excursion groups. Within a radius of about 20 miles, we have many important sites to visit , including Assisi—famous as the home of St. Francis and his monks—and Gubbio—with its Roman amphitheater, palace, museums and old city center. Our Shrine can serve as a stopover or a place to make a retreat for those who plan to visit Rome. A bit of our history
The presence in Italy of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette dates back to 1896 with the opening of the International Scholasticate in philosophy and theology in Rome, first housed on Via de Pretis, then at 155 Via Cavour in a large building.Antananarivo, Madagascar Thanks Pope Francis for His Visit
"Most of the population of Madagascar lives in extreme poverty caused largely by the lack of distribution of the resources of which the country is rich", says to Agenzia Fides Fr. Cosimo Alvati, a Salesian with a long experience of mission in Madagascar, in commenting on the strong warning launched by Pope Francis during his visit to the Big Island, against corruption.
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Chapel and Church of Our Lady of La Salette in Paris, France
Window in La Salette Chapel in parish in Paris, in honor of St. Philomena, Patroness of French National Pilgrimage to Holy Mountain, 1871-1872Although a native citizen of Paris, and one who from his childhood had been in touch with the religious life of that great metropolis, I must confess it was many years before I had occasion to become really acquainted with La Salette and its salutary influence, from the earliest times after the apparition, upon the Catholic history of our city. This remarkable and lasting contribution can best be seen in the several sanctuaries and centers of devotion which, with the approval of the Archbishops of Paris, were erected and dedicated to Our Lady of La Salette. We will content ourselves here with tracing the interesting, and even dramatic, annals of the most illustrious shrine of La Salette in Paris, built and dedicated as far back as 1858, and located at 27 Rue de Dantzig in that district of the French capital known as Vaugirard.
I well recall the impressions of my first visit to that chapel in 1922. A friend of mine who lived in the Vaugirard section invited me to accompany him on a visit to “the chapel of St. Philomena,” as it was more commonly known, at 27 Dantzig Street, where he often went to pray. It was located in a rather shabby and depressing neighborhood; the lodging houses on each side of the street looked old and dilapidated, and the uneven cobblestone alley was lined with blighted and stunted shrubs.
Read more Chapel and Church of Our Lady of La Salette in Paris, France
Experiencing the Lord and the La Salettes in Madagascar
We are just ordinary people, parents and grandparents. I am a retired nurse and John is the volunteer coordinator in the Emergency Department at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and former High School teacher and coach.
We are La Salette Associates and have work closely with the Fathers and Brothers at the Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Enfield, New Hampshire for the last 39 years. We want to share with you our experiences visiting the missions in Madagascar.
Our Experience
Bp. Donald Pelletier, M.S., retired bishop of Morondava, Madagascar (center) with Sharon and John MarkowitzBefore going on our first trip to Madagascar some nine years ago, we conjured up all sorts of images of missionaries in foreign lands. Our minds, molded by old missionary movies and slides, formed images of priests wearing long robes, sandals, and straw hats, walking on dirt paths, paddling small boats up rivers to remote villages, and bringing the word of Jesus Christ to the natives. As we soon found out, these images were not too far from the reality we witnessed and experienced. These missionaries are still wearing straw hats and sandals, walking or driving on very bumpy dirt roads, and paddling or riding in small boats to remote villages in the bush.
Through Bishop Donald Pelletier, M.S., and the missionary priests and sisters that we encountered, a clearer picture of who they are and what they are doing has emerged for us. And, yes, it didn't take us long to understand the gratification that comes from giving so much of oneself to the smiling and grateful Malagasy people.
Read more Experiencing the Lord and the La Salettes in Madagascar
Parish Life—Madagascar Style
Some Reasons Why Madagascar Is Known as the "Paradise of the Missions"
As the great majority of our faithful do not know how to read, they have to learn their prayers the hard way. It's a work of patience to repeat the prayers for them over and over again until they can recite them without hesitation. The result is that they know by heart many more prayers than the average American Catholic.They can recite the principal litanies including the "let us pray" without hesitation. Such prayers as the Acts of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Memorare to Our Lady of La Salette — the prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel (a great favorite), the prayer to Saint Joseph for the month of the Rosary, are as familiar to them as the Our Father and the Hail Mary.
Can the Chapel of Our Lady of La Salette Church in Marseille, France be Restored?
The neighborhood of Accates and the Miracle
Old postcard of Our Lady of La Salette Chapel in the village of Accates, near Marceille, FranceIn 1800, the quaint village of Accates was in the 11th district of Marseille, France. Its lands were covered with vineyards that produced a very good wine. There were also very diverse cultures that required a large workforce. The village of Accates had about 200 inhabitants. From 1850, Gaspard Nicolas (1807-1878), owner of a large part of the land with thirteen farms, did heavy work in the neighborhood. He hired about fifteen men for this work for more than twenty years. He was given awards for that.Gaspard Nicolas was a practicing Christian. In 1860, he was treated for years for skin cancer and it was considered incurable. However in 1869, he was miraculously cured of skin cancer. This miraculous healing occurred during a pilgrimage to Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Isère. In gratitude, he decided to build a church "ex-voto" with his own money, whose facade was a replica, somewhat smaller that the Basilica of Our Lady of La Salette.
Read more Can the Chapel of Our Lady of La Salette Church in Marseille, France be Restored?
Paula and the Hour of Blessing at Banyan Tree
Fr. Edward B. O'Sullivan, M.S. (1910-1951), missionary in Burma (now Myanmar), pausing at the grave of Fr. Wieńczysław Weslak, M.S. (1908-1938)It was after a week of touring the villages that I came to Nyaungbin (meaning Banyan Tree) on the south-central shore of Burma. In the early 1940s I had last been here and found it a most discouraging sort of place. One is never more fully aware of the abyss that separates true Catholic life from sheer, awful unbelief than when we’re out in these villages. It is truly the work of heaven and none of the poor missionary's doing when the spark of faith perseveres in such an overwhelming darkness.So I wasn't surprised that the few Catholics at Banyan Tree had only the barest sparks of the fire of faith left in them, what with the war (World War II) and the absence of priests adding to their unwholesome surroundings. It was our business – mostly the catechist's in this case, to be honest about it – to fan a little flame from those few embers.
We were in the midst of a catechism examination. It was of a young lad from another village who has been waiting for some time for Baptism and will soon be a Catholic. One of our few surviving Catholics burst in on us with the news that his sister lay dying in a nearby hut. Would we come and anoint her?