The Secret of La Salette

The secret of La Salette (1846): the eight versions by Maximin and Mélanie, the long edition (1858-1878), and the controversy in the Church

The secret was written down eight times: three editions by Maximin, on July 3 and in August 1851, and on August 5, 1853. Four editions by Mélanie: July 6, 1851, August 14, 1853, and the long edition, written out three times between 1858 and 1878, of which the last two are the only ones preserved. These last editions are longer: Mélanie testified that she was not authorized to make a full disclosure until 1858. The subsequent editions of the secret are quite different, yet they do not contradict one another.

The seers were so bewildered by what they perceived beyond themselves, “in the light of God” (as Mélanie points out), that each time they wrote the text in a new way (without having the previous versions at hand). They strung together whatever came to mind, without giving up brevity (except in Mélanie’s last editions after 1858). Clearly, the closest to the event, but also the most representative, is the first twofold official redaction of 1851, which was recently discovered.

The secret of La Salette was given to the seers intuitively, in images and not in words, “in the light of God,” as Mélanie explicitly states:

“A great veil was lifted, the events were revealed before my eyes […]. I saw happenings […] and further on […] a thousand and a thousand times more things than the ears perceive”

(December 26, 1870).

The two children kept silent and wrote down the secrets on July 2, 1851, only on condition that the letter be sent to the Pope through the bishop. When Pius IX read it, he was deeply moved by the truths it contained.

When the priests of the new society of missionaries of La Salette asked him what the secrets of La Salette said, the Pope put it this way:

“Do you want to know the secret of La Salette? The root of the secrets is this: if not everyone consciously decides to do penance, we shall be lost.”

In 1879 the secret revealed to Mélanie was made public in this form:

“Mélanie, what I am going to reveal to you now is not to remain secret forever. In 1858 (the year of the apparitions of the Mother of God at Lourdes) you may make it known.

The priests who are servants of my Son are precisely the ones who, with their dissipated lives and their greed for money, will make possible the manifestation of the wrath of the Almighty. Consecrated men and priests have put my Son back on the cross. Because of the conduct of the inhabitants of the Earth, the wrath of the Heavenly Father will be called down. Heads of state and peoples have forgotten prayer and penance; the devil will be called back by these stars that have become dark and full of errors. Humanity stands on the eve of sad events and of the heaviest chastisements.

The representative of my Son, the Supreme Pontiff Pius IX, will not leave Rome after the year 1859; he will fight bravely with the weapons of faith and love. I will be with him. The Church will pass through a very deep crisis.

It will be the time of darkness. Holy faith in God will fall into oblivion; man without God will lose his love for all things, and everyone will want to be the head of all the others. An endless crisis will follow, with violence and arrogance of every kind. That time is drawing near when we shall see only the triumph of the empire of oppression and of murderers, of hatred and lies; everyone will seek only his own selfish gain.

There will no longer be love for family and country. The Holy Father will suffer greatly. But I will be at his side and will accept his sacrifices. The triumph of evil will not be guaranteed forever.

(Mélanie in fact speaks these words in Lecce:

“He will not reign for long”).

The temporal governments will all have the same aim: to overthrow the religious foundations of the peoples and tear them down, and to establish materialism, spiritism, and atheism. France, Italy, Spain, and England will go to war. The French will fight against the French and the Italians against the Italians. There will be a great war.

God will no longer be honored in Italy and France; the Gospel will be completely forgotten. The Evil One will enter every home. Many great cities will be burned and almost destroyed; others will be swallowed up by earthquakes. Everyone will believe that the end has come. The righteous will have much to suffer, but their prayers and expiatory sacrifices will rise straight to heaven. They will implore my mercy, and my help will be granted to them.

The mercy of my Son will command the Angels to destroy the enemy of the world. Suddenly all the enemies of the Church of Jesus Christ will disappear, and the Earth will become a desert. A new era will slowly begin, in which the men of the Earth will place themselves in the true service of Christ. Peace, harmony between men and God, and love of neighbor will prevail over everything. The new rulers will become the right arm of Holy Church, which will truly become the bearer of the virtues of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel will be preached everywhere, and men will make great strides toward the true faith, for there will be unity among the faithful of Christ, and men will live on the fruits of God. This peace and harmony among men will not last long. It will be forgotten that the sins of the world are the origin of all the chastisements that fall upon the Earth. A forerunner of the Antichrist will appear and will want to be regarded as the new God.

The seasons will change, and so will the atmosphere. Water and fire will cause terrible earthquakes and great destruction; mountains and cities will fall. The stars and the moon will no longer have the strength to shine. Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.

The demons of the air will produce prodigious phenomena in the air and on the Earth. Men will grow worse and worse. But God will always take care of His most faithful servants and of men of good will. The Gospel will be preached everywhere. All peoples and all nations will know the truth of God.

I will be able to call the apostles of the last times, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, those who have led a life of humility and courageous privation, in contemplation and silence, in prayer and expiation, in union with God and with divine things.

I will be able to call those who have lived immersed in suffering and hidden from the world. The time will come when they will have to show themselves in order to fill the world with light.

I will say to them:

“Go and show yourselves, my children! I will be with you and in you. Fight, children of light, for the glory of God and of Jesus Christ.”

“The Savior of the world,” as the prince of darkness will be called, will emerge from the abyss that has opened in the earth. He will want to rise proudly into the air and reach heaven. But he will feel the breath of the Archangel Michael and be suffocated by it. He will fall back to the Earth and be swallowed up forever in the eternal abyss of hell together with his acolytes. Water and fire will purify the Earth, and all things will be renewed. Only then will God be served and honored.

The secret of La Salette and the messages of conversion transmitted by Mary belong to the tradition of private revelations examined in John Paul II’s encyclical Redemptoris Mater, which presents Mary as a watchful mother who intercedes for humanity before the Son.

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