The Transformation of
the Missionaries of La Salette:
from Diocesan to Religious to Missionaries
by Fr. Jack Nuelle, M.S.

Starting out as a team of diocesan missionaries...

Bruilliard As he pursued his painstaking investigation into the Seated truth of the La Salette event, Bishop Philibert de Bruillard was nurturing a project dear to him: the founding of a corps of diocesan missionaries. Before publicly recognizing the truth of La Salette, the bishop wished to provide a permanent pastoral service for pilgrims who were already coming to the mountain in great numbers. As soon as the Apparition's genuineness was well established, he decided to build a new shrine to Mary and to form a corps of priests who would spend the spring and summer months ministering to the pilgrims on the mountain; and the autumn and winter seasons preaching missionsand retreats in the diocese.

Their ministry would be oriented toward a specific goal: continue the work initiated by Mary on September 19, 1846, becoming, in fact, Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette. In the bishop’s mind, Mary's message and the needs of the Church would come together and be served. True, the Virgin spoke to the “whole world,” but for the present time, the first missionaries would remain diocesan priests.

...they become a religious community...

Giraud The unexpected happened. While meditating on the grace of La Salette and meeting the spiritual needs of the pilgrims, the missionaries were quickly led to a renewal and conversion in their lives, both individually and as a group. In a founding letter written on August 4, 1855, Father Denaz petitioned Bishop Ginoulhiac for “the religious life with the three vows” (poverty, chastity, obedience). He was convinced that “Our Lady of La Salette wants a congregation in keeping with the importance and the expansion of the work she herself came to initiate.” The vows of religious life, temporary at first, then perpetual, would imbue the congregation with the elements needed for permanence and expansion. The La Salette message, thus deepened and lived, would become a remedy suited to combating the evils undermining society. Religious women would live in accordance with the same spirit.

First vows were taken on February 2, 1858. During that year Father Sylvain-Marie Giraud asked to join the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette. As a novice and later as Master of Novices and Superior General, he would be very instrumental in making this first generation a real religious community.

Men of mettle such as Fathers Archier, Perrin, Chapuy, Henri and Jean Berthier would help him. Filled with the grace of La Salette, these few men–they were eleven—in a very short time spread the message of La Salette into other dioceses.

...and then become an international missionary congregation...

In 1876, Bishop Fava, a missionary bishop (La Reunion, Zanzibar, Martinique), assumed direction Fava Msgr of the diocese of Grenoble. He wanted the community to become a diocesan religious congregation. Following a plan drawn by Father Giraud, a book of Constitutions was crafted together point by point. The Superior General, Father Archier, and his Council were elected. The bishop favored the founding of an apostolic school, or minor seminary, to guarantee recruitment and independence. Father Jean Berthier became its first director. At this same time, Bishop Bernard, Apostolic Prefect of Norway, was looking for missionaries.

In 1878 Pope Leo XIII received the bishop of Grenoble and Father Henri Berthier in an audience and proposed that the Constitutions of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette be approved in Rome, thus leading the way to their becoming a Pontifical Congregation.

Everything came together in 1879: the consecration of the Basilica and the crowning of the statue of Our Lady of La Salette. The Vatican confided the Norway mission to the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette. Bishop Bernard even asked to enter this Marian Pontifical Congregation that Norway Ordination had now become a truly missionary Congregation.

To a Pontifical Missionary Congregation, the meaning of Mary's words, “Well, my children, you will make this known to all my people” came increasingly clearer and urgent. In the years that followed many missionaries journeyed from France to initiate or consolidate new foundations. The La Salette ministry of Reconciliation diversified and spread over the globe.

...and accepted living a vowed life.

We are inspired by the first Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette who recognized that “religious life with the three vows” is at the heart of our community life and mission. Here we offer the best of ourselves, envisioning the fulfillment of each religious in and through community while Berthier J missioning to the world. The overall thrust of our religious and community life today is to recapture that founding spirit and charism which will positively influence the Church and society of our time. Our Rule of Life articulates it well. “By our profession of the public vows of poverty, chastity and obedience we are consecrated in a new way to this mission and we bind ourselves to live in a religious community which is a sign of the Kingdom.” (Rule of Life, chapter 1, #3)

La Salette - A Mission to All Her People:

Today's Fathers, Brothers and Sisters of Our Lady of La Salette continue, in union with Mary, to serve Jesus and the world he came to save. From its origin, the ministry of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette wa Perin s to respond to the pastoral needs of pilgrims journeying to the site of the Apparition. That orientation remains a principal goal for them to this day. Facsimiles of the site of the Apparition at La Salette in France have been erected in different parts of the globe. La Salette Missionaries serve in these spiritual centers striving to fulfill their ministry of reconciliation by making Mary's message known. The Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, a pontifical missionary congregation whose general headquarters are in Rome, have as their purpose to be devoted servants of Christ and the Church for the fulfillment of the ministry of Reconciliation, in the light of the Apparition of Our Lady at La Salette in France. The Congregation Chapuy is made up of priests and brothers gathered together into eight provinces and three regions throughout the world. The Sisters of Our Lady of La Salette, whose general headquarters are in Grenoble, France, are a religious diocesan congregation dedicated to the apostolate. In the spirit of Our Lady's Apparition at La Salette, they live their religious and apostolic life in the spirit of Reconciliation, attentive to the needs of the poor. They have houses in France, Brazil, the Philippines, Madagascar, Poland and the United States.

La Salette Ministries Around the World:

La Salette Missionaries serve the people of God in twenty seven countries around the globe, working in such varied ministries as shrines, retreat houses, spirituality centers, parishes, counseling centers, schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, nursing homes, refugee camps, soup kitchens. Some ministries focus on migrant workers, veterans, circus people, the elderly and young.