La Transfiguración

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. Melanie 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 Melanie was hired out to tend the neighbors’ cows. Form the spring to the fall of 1846 she worked for Jean-Baptiste Pra at Les Ablandins, one of the helmets of the village of La Salette. Pra’s neighbor 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 companion, Melanie, 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 Melanie’s long absence. Both spoke the local dialect and fragmented French. They had neither schooling nor religious instruction, could either read or write. Melanie’s father was on a never-ending quest for little employment. Her mother, overwhelmed with work and the cares of her brood could give each one very affection. At the time of the apparition Maximine and Melanie 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. Melanie was very different from her new companion. She lived with strangers and was away from her family except for the winter months when she lived with them in cold and hunger. That had become timid and withdrawn should not surprise anyone.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 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 the visitors when she became a postulant, then a novice in the same congregation, she held fast to her own options.

For this reason, the new Bishop of Genoble, 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, Melanie then took to lending ear to “troubled and sick individuals,” to people whose mind 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 secret she had received from the Beautiful Lady. Even a cursory review points to immutable differences between that Melanie says and writes, and the words and signs Mary gave at La Salette.

Melanie’s problems and phantasms became the epicenter of her discourse. Through her prophecies she reaps revenge on those opposed her projects. She thus expresses her rejection of a society and a hostile environment. She recreates an imaginary past where the frustration of her childhood are effectively exorcised.

As early as 1854, Bishop Ginoulhiac wrote: “the prediction attributed to Melanie…have no basis in fact; they have no importance with regard to La Salette…the 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 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, Melanie 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 Melanie. All these are far distant from the historical foundations of the apparition. The content of this so-called prophecies, despite her religious veneer, 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 unstable, questionable and sterile terrain and personal assumptions. This type of writing alienates faith instead of strengthening. In 1954, a English priest brought Melanie to England. She entered 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 Sisters of Compassion of Marseille. After her 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. 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 her search for apparition and an imprimatur, even extracying a hearing from papal official, Bishop Lepidi. This, however, never constituted even veiled approval. The authority invoked by Melanie is incompetent in the matter.

After stay a Cannes on south of France, Melanie traveled to Chalon-sur-Saone, 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 af Autun. The Holy See, brought into the matter, decided in favor of the Bishop. 1892, Melanie returned to a place near Lecce, Italy, then journeyed to Messina in Sicity on the invitation of Canon Annibale di Francia. Following a few months in the Pieadmonh region, she was invited by the abbe Combe, pastor of Diou, a priest much taken up with politico-religious prophecies, to settle in the Allier region. She finished a contrived autobiography, wherein she created a an extraordinary childhood enriched with pseudo-mystical wanderings, her own imaginings and chimera provided by her correspondents.

The message Melanie attempts to link to La Salette during this period has 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 on September 18-19, 1902. She returned to Altamura, near Bari in southern Italy and died there on December 14, 1904. her remains are buried under 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 errors, there is one point from which Melanie never departed: the testimony she and Maximin gave on the evening of September 19, 1846, in Baptiste Pra’s kitchen at Les Albandins. She held firm throughout the inquiry direct by Bishop Philibert de Bruillard, as well as that of the confirming investigation conducted by Bishop Ginoulhiac. Throughout a difficult lifetime, Melanie remained poor and devout, ever faithful to her first testimony.

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 the neighboring district. The mother died in leaving Maximin, 17 months old, and a daughter, Angelique, who is 8 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 Melanie, Maximin twirls his hat on his walking stick, or, with the other end of his staff, poke pebbles toward the feet of the Lady. “Not a single one touched her!” he would calmly reply to the 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-Francois, 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 saint Thecle who keeps an eye on him calls him “perpetual motion”. Constant pressure from pilgrims and busybodies don’t make Maximin’s life any easier. A few visionary partisans of the so-called son of Louis 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 Genoble, 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 Cure’s assistant, greets them. He calls La Salette a hoax and the children liars. During the morning of September 25, 1850, the Cure 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 ceased 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 behavior.

A mere listing of the places Maximin traveled 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 to Airesure-Adour to Vasinet, then to Tonnerre college, to Petit Jouy en Josas near Versailles and Paris. Maximin was in turn a seminarian, anursing-home employee, a medical student. Failing the state examination he got a job in a pharmacy. He enlisted in the pontifical zouaves but canceled his contract after six month stint and return to Paris. The newspaper La Vie Parisienne published an attact against La Salette and the two children. Maximin protests 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 prifession de foi sur l’apparition de Notre Dame de La Salette”). It was during the 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 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 Genoble. Following this he returns to Corps and is joined there by the Jourdains. The three lived 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 would do so. On February 2nd he visits the parish church, also for the last time. On the evening of March 1st, 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. He remains lie in the cemetery of Corps, but his heart rest within the La Salette basilica.

He wanted the underscore once again his love for La Salette: “I believe firmly, even to the shedding of my blood, in the famous apparition of the most Blessed Virgin in 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 found affection in peace of God.