Heaven confides in a shepherdess of Le Laus

In May 1664, the Virgin Mary, holding the Child Jesus in her arms, appeared to Benoîte Rencurel, a 17-year-old illiterate shepherdess, near the hamlet of Le Laus, in southern France. "Lady Mary" continued to appear to Benoîte for 53 years, until her death on 25 December 1718, making the site a famous pilgrimage, officially recognised by the Catholic Church in 2008. With reports of miraculous cures, newfound peace, conversions, and a return to confession, the shrine still attracts many visitors, and the number of pilgrims has increased since its inception: from 120,000 in 1666 to over 200,000 today.

Monument on the site of Notre-Dame du Laus / © Shutterstock, Franck-A.

Reasons to believe:

The accounts of the four chroniclers of the events were written at the same time as the apparitions and form a corpus of 1,800 pages recounting the first fifty years of Le Laus. These authors were highly respected witnesses: a lawyer at the Grenoble parliament, a doctor of theology, a chaplain to the King of France, etc.

Benoîte was known to be sound of mind. There is no mention of any psychological disorder in any of the writings or sources. She was not crazy or a mythomaniac. On the contrary, she was known to all for her courage and selflessness, a model of generosity and humility.

It is hard to imagine Benoîte, a young illiterate woman with no big social network or support, inventing such a story.

From spring to December 1665, 61 miracles of healing were recorded, logged and checked at the place of the apparition. The unexplained cure of Lucrèce Souchon was authenticated by the Bishop of Gap in 1720.

The scents of Le Laus have been perceived at the apparition sites since 1665 by thousands of people, believers and agnostics alike. Scientific research undertaken specifically on this subject has never succeeded in explaining their origin or composition.

The first investigation, carried out in September 1665, and the second, in December 1671, both came to a positive conclusion. The Jansenist movement at the time was strongly opposed to the very idea of an apparition. The diocesan clergy took up Benoîte's cause, and work began on the shrine.

Questioned every afternoon from 28 May to 8 June 1670 by the vicar general of the diocese and the Jesuits, the visionary did not change her testimony one iota. On 4 December 1671, Bishop Charles de Genlis questioned Benoîte again for more than three and a half hours "with great severity", after which he was definitively convinced of the authenticity of the facts. In fact, in the fifty-three years between the first apparition and the seeress's death, she never retracted or contradicted herself on a single point.

In 1666, Benoîte became a nun. She remained faithful to her vows until her death and led an exemplary life. She was declared a Servant of God on 7 September 1871; her cause of beatification was opened in 1971; and the heroic nature of her virtues was recognised on 3 April 2009.

The fruits of the Marian apparitions are real, numerous and lasting: an increase in the number of pilgrims, conversions, miraculous cures, religious vocations, etc. On 4 May 2008, the Catholic Church definitively recognised the supernatural origin of the apparitions.

In addition to the Marian apparitions, many of Benoîte's contemporaries witnessed other mystical phenomena in her life: visions of Christ on the cross, ecstasies, a "mystical death" every Friday, physical abuse by the devil, etc.

One example is the twelve days Benoîte spent in Embrun in 1670: the people in charge of watching the young girl day and night testified that they never saw her eat a single bite of food or drink a glass of water during her stay, and that she seemed fine.

Summary:

One day in May 1664, Benoîte Rencurel, an illiterate 17-year-old shepherdess, the daughter of Guillaume Rencurel and Catherine Matheron, was tending her sheep in the Fours valley between Gap and Barcelonnette, in what is now the Hautes-Alpes department. A pious girl, she recited her rosary as often as she could.

Suddenly, she saw something unusual in a small cave: a magnificent light that couldn't be the sun. She went closer and discovered in the middle of that light a "beautiful lady" holding a child by the hand. She wore a crown and her face was so bright that Benoîte could hardly make out her features. A conversation began: "Beautiful lady, what are you doing up there?" And the shepherdess offered her half of her snack! The mysterious woman remained silent.

In the days that followed, the same phenomenon occurred. For three months, every day, in the same place, the Virgin appeared to the shepherdess, until she finally revealed her celestial identity. At first, Benoîte didn't tell anyone what she had seen. Then she told the whole thing to the farmer who employed her, who in turn divulged the secret to the parish priest at Le Laus. In August 1664, François Grimaud, a lawyer at the Grenoble parliament, went to Le Laus to question Benoîte. He was quickly convinced that she was telling the truth.

On 29 August 1664, the parish priest of Saint-Etienne d'Avançon organised the first pilgrimage to the site of the apparitions. Several dozen people were present at one of the apparitions and were chosen to see Benoîte in ecstasy. On the following 29th September, Our Lady appeared on the other side of the valley and told Benoîte that, from then on, she would show herself to her in a small ruined chapel "where sweet smells floated about". This was the beginning of the famous fragrances of Le Laus, for the very next day, Benoîte discovered a tiny, dilapidated oratory on the hillside of Le Laus, dedicated to Our Lady of Good Encounter. The Mother of God appeared beside her on the plaster altar to the right of the tabernacle. Mary told her that one day a great church would be built in the place of the oratory, for the conversion of sinners. Benoîte couldn't understand how such an achievement could come about without money or help.

For fifty-three years, almost every day, Mary would appear to Benoîte in this secluded spot. The first unexplained cures were recorded, such as that of Catherine Vial, aged twenty-two, on the night of 28 to 19 April 1665, from a six-year-old paralysis of the legs. Most of these healings occurred after the sick applied to their bodies a little oil from the lamp of the shrine used to signal the Real Presence of Jesus in the tabernacle

In September 1665, Antoine Lambert, Vicar General of Embrun, Jesuit Father Gérard and Canon Bounnafous investigated, never losing sight of the seer. It was a time when the shrine was booming. People came from all over the region, and soon from further away. In 1667, the clergy denounced an "epidemic of false apparitions" throughout the Dauphiné region: in 1858, Lourdes experienced a similar phenomenon in the communes surrounding the Pyrenean shrine.

In December 1671, a new investigation was carried out by the Bishop of Gap, Mgr Charles de Genlis, François Grimaud, the future royal prosecutor, Abbé Jean Peytieu, a doctor of theology, and Abbé Pierre Gaillard. Their conclusions, which were positive, confirmed the observations of September 1665 as well as those of the spring of 1670 (Benoîte's stay in Embrun, during which she was questioned every day for three hours).

Benoîte's mystical experiences were regular. On 7 July 1673, she saw Christ on the cross, who said to her: "My daughter, I make myself seen in this state so that you may share in the pains of my passion." From then on, every week until 1684, from Thursday (around 4 p.m.) to Saturday at 9 a.m., Benoîte would relive the Lord's Passion, both physically and morally.

Nothing could stop the popularity of Le Laus. For her part, Benoîte led a very edifying life, welcoming pilgrims with incredible availability, sharing with the poor and the sick the little that her rigorous asceticism left her. The shrine witnessed countless miraculous cures, new-found peace, conversions, confessions, and ecstasies, attracting a growing number of visitors. Shortly before 1670, the old oratory was replaced by a new church. By then, the shrine was already well-established, offering lodging for pilgrims and various services. In 1712, the shrine was entrusted to the Fathers of Sainte-Garde and, during the Age of Enlightenment, the site did not suffer from de-Christianisation. The erection of the sanctuary church as a minor basilica in 1892 by Pope Leo XIII consecrated this place where Heaven spoke to an illiterate shepherdess.

Patrick Sbalchiero

Beyond reasons to believe:

Although official recognition of the apparitions was not proclaimed until 4 May 2008 by Bishop Jean-Michel Di Falco, in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio to France and about thirty cardinals and bishops, Le Laus has become "the most powerful shrine in Europe" (Jean Guitton), even before Benoîte's death in 1718.

Going further:

Charles Matheron, Recueil historique des merveilles que Dieu a opérées à Notre-Dame du Laus, près Gap en Dauphiné, par l'intercession de la Sainte Vierge; a 1736 edition is available online.

More information:

Our Lady of Laus (Kindle Edition) by Bob and Penny Lord, Journeys of Faith (April 26, 2011)
Collective, La Basilique de Notre-Dame du Laus, Gap, Éditions des Alpes, 2005.
René Humetz, Enquête sur les parfums de Notre-Dame du Laus, Sarment, Le Jubilé, 2008.
Articles on Le Laus in the Marian Encyclopaedia: apparitions, the visionary, healings, teachings.
The article on the Notre Historie avec Marie website: " Notre-Dame du Laus, land of reconciliation for sinners for 350 years ".