| Download Video-slide story
of La Salette for the young. for Real Player at www.real.com |
The Mountain of Mystery
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Story of La Salette
This digital story is reproduced from the original work printed in as a comic book in 1963.
| This is not a story of yesterday. It is not a tale of
tomorrow. It is a story for always - for yesterday and tomorrow - for
now! It is an adventure story - a mystery story - and it happened to you, even though you were not right there. It happened to you because it concern you - and all mankind. Remember it ----- always. |
| Our story begins high in the
silent and mysterious Alps of a region in France called Dauphiny. The towering mountains are wild, lonely and beautiful. Their peaks stretch upward - the earth's giant fingers reaching toward heaven. Only the shepherds knew the area well. |
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There, on the evening of Friday, September 18, 1846, two young shepherd children returned from the mountains with their herds .... |
| The girl is named Melanie the boy - Maximin. They have met only the day before but with the openheartedness of children liked each other at once. Melanie works for a man named Baptiste Pra - Maximin for M'sieur Pierre Selme .... | |
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| So the next morn Saturday the 19th of September, finds Maximin and his employer, Pierre Selme, preparing for the day's work .... | |
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| Maximin soon reaches the house of Baptiste Pra where Melanie and her herd wait. They start their herds forward together when - | |
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| But the incident is quickly forgotten as they continue their race up the mountain. Finally - | |
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| So, Melanie and Maximin talk of many things. Time passes quickly. Suddenly, the sound of a distant and lovely bell is heard - | |
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| But when the two little shepherds return to the pasture slope, the hot sun beats down relentlessly .... | |
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| The stillness and the cool of the mountain all combine to let Melanie and Maximin sleep long. Later - a good deal later - Melanie is the first to waken. | |
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| Fearful, the children race back up to the pasture slope to find, in relief.... | |
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| Now, once again, the two little shepherds descend into the mountain
glade... . But suddenly, Melanie halts, her eyes widening... |
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| The ball of bright, fiery light expands. It is now huge, some
twenty-five feet across the center, filling the ravine with a dazzling light
brighter then the sun... . Then as the shepherds watch in awe and fright... |
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| Now as suddenly as it had appeared, the ball of light opened up to reveal a radiantly beautiful lady inside it. She appears to be sitting on the same rocks Melanie and Maximin had sat upon and seems to be weeping... | |
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| But, as the children watch with a mixture of fear and awe, the beautiful, weeping figure rises to stand tall and straight before them... | |
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| The radiant figure advances toward Melanie and Maximin. She speaks and her voice is both clear and soft, sad and warm, commanding, yet tender... |
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| Suddenly, Melanie and Maximin are not afraid anymore. They neither know nor understand why, but they have no fear, now. They hurry forward to the edge of the brook where they had fallen asleep... |
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| That previous year, 1845, the harvest of all crops and especially the potatoes, was extremely poor. The farmers suffered greatly, yet instead of humbling themselves in shame from the chastisement from above, they cursed and swore in anger. |
| The Lady speaks, " No, you did not heed it, instead you swore, you took the name of my Son in vain. The potatoes will continue to decay so that by christmas there will be none left." |
| Maximin's sudden remark was answered in the following months when, as a matter of record, there was hardly a potato to be found anywhere in the province of corps or the surrounding localities and the world over, in England, Germany, Italy, France and Ireland, there was great hardship at the loss of that main food, the potatoe. But now, suddenly, the Blessed Virgin realizes her little listeners have a problem. |
| From then, the beautiful figure speaks to Melanie and Maximin in the "patois," the language dialect of the region. " If you have wheat, it is not good to sow it. All that you sow the insects will eat. What comes up will fall into dust when you thresh it." |
To be continued....
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