Our Lady at Pellevoisin: "I am all merciful"

Synthèse :

Estelle Faguette, born in 1843 in Saint-Memmie, near Châlons-sur-Marne, France, became a servant in the household of Countess Marie-Luce de La Rochefoucauld-Montbel, in Pellevoisin, when a bad fall forced her to leave the novitiate of the Augustinian Sisters of Notre-Dame de Paris and give up religious life. Since 1875, however, she had been suffering from chronic peritonitis, which was poorly treated and consequently turned into tuberculosis. In February 1876, Estelle had been bedridden for several days and was in a great deal of pain.

Around midnight on 14 February, the Virgin Mary appeared to her. "I was trying to rest when suddenly the devil appeared at the foot of my bed. Oh, how frightened I was! He was horrible, he made faces at me; no sooner had he arrived than the Blessed Virgin appeared on the other side." So begins Estelle's story. The young woman, of very modest origins and the daughter of a bankrupted businessman, had never before reported the slightest extraordinary experienced. She led a secluded existence, far removed from the world, which she avoided like the plague. The presence of the grimacing being may seem anecdotal, or a figment of the imagination. In reality, it reveals the spiritual battle being waged around the sick woman, who had been told by a few people that her illness was terminal. Beyond the symbolic reference to the devil, and its figurative aspect, this evil spirit conveys the importance of the moment Estelle was living through, on the threshold of death.

The description she gave of the Mother of God is as follows: "She had a very white woollen veil that formed three folds; her features were regular, her complexion white and pink, rather a little pale." A dialogue then began between Estelle and the apparition: "Have no fear, you know you are my daughter. Courage, be patient, my Son will let himself be touched. You will suffer for five more days, in honour of the five wounds of my Son. On Saturday, you will either be dead or healed." The initiative came from the apparition, establishing contact between the humble young woman and Heaven, just as God so often takes the initiative to call people in the Bible. Mary soothed Estelle, removing the fear caused by the presence of the devil, a troublemaker and a source of unease, which vanished with the mere presence of the Virgin Mary, as confirmed by Christian tradition. In the weeks that followed, the apparition repeated: "I am all mercy".

The allusion to the five wounds of Christ was not an invention of the visionary: it is a devotion practised since at least the 11th century (Saint Peter Damian, d. 1072). Expressed in this way, it is impossible that Estelle, whose religious knowledge was very limited, could have invented such a formula.

Fourteen other apparitions followed one another until 8 December 1876, in the same place, namely Estelle's bedroom. On the night of 18 to 19 February (fifth apparition), when she was thought to be on the point of death, Estelle was miraculously cured of her tubercular lung lesions.

On 9 September (ninth apparition), Mary showed her "red heart" (cf. the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, practiced the Church since Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and the private revelations made to great mystics, such as Saint Gertrude of Helfta at the end of the 13th century). The following messages evoke the difficulties encountered by believers in France during the Third Republic, where positivism and materialism sometimes reigned supreme.

On 8 December 1876, the day of the fifteenth and last apparition, the Virgin asked Estelle to wear the scapular she had shown her: "I have chosen you to spread my glory and to spread this devotion; you yourself will go to the prelate and present him with the model of the scapular [...]. Nothing would please me more than to see this livery on each of my children, and that they will all apply themselves to repairing the outrages that my Son receives in the sacrament of his love." "Show it to the Pope?" the humble maid naturally wondered. She knew neither Rome nor even the rest of France... In fact, she did bring the scapular to Leo XIII when they met in private audience 24 years later.

From 11 April 1876, Father Salmon, Estelle's spiritual director, informed the diocesan clergy of the successive apparitions. The ball was rolling. The news quickly reached the ears of the Archbishop of Bourges, Charles-Amable de La Tour d'Auvergne. Father Salmon was authorised to speak about the events from the pulpit. The following month, the archbishop wrote that he had no problem with the words of the apparition being written on a sign ("I am all merciful), which would be placed above the statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, in the church at Pellevoisin, and that Estelle's room should be transformed into a "little oratory", as it was there that the visionary was cured, having announced the date of this miracle in advance (on the night of 18 to 19 February, i.e. effectively five days after the previous apparition which had specified the moment: "You will suffer another five days"). This marked the beginning of the shrine at Pellevoisin and the pilgrimage that went with it.

On 13 January 1877, a commission of enquiry was set up to investigate Estelle's sudden recovery. Its conclusions were all favourable, as was Pope Pius IX's reaction to the proposed confraternity in honour of Our Lady of Pellevoisin. The confraternity was instituted on 28 July 1878 and raised to archconfraternity status in 1894 by Pope Leo XIII. From the outset, the papacy and bishops supported the devotion to the scapular of Pellevoisin.

On 6 February 1878, the day before the death of Pope Pius IX, Estelle had a prophetic vision: she saw the future pope (a "bishop dressed in white") in the guise of Pius IX's successor, who would be elected thirteen days later and ascend the throne of Saint Peter under the name of Leo XIII. The pontiff received Estelle in private audience on 17 February 1900.

On 4 April, the Roman Congregation of Rites published a decree approving the Pellevoisin scapular. From then on, there was no stopping the thousands of faithful who came to Estelle's room, which had been transformed into a place of prayer.

By the time of Estelle's death on 23 August 1929, the Church had not yet ruled on the supernatural origin of the apparitions, but the diocesan authorities were organising the nascent shrine by entrusting it to nuns and religious. In 1983, Archbishop Paul Vignacour of Bourges officially recognised the miraculous nature of Estelle's healing. In 2009, a "Centre Estelle Faguette" was opened, where formation, prayer sessions, retreats and other events are organised every year. Finally, in June 2020, Archbishop Jérôme Beau of Bourges had the joy of seeing his project to reopen the cause for the beatification of the visionary accepted by all the members of the French Bishops' Conference.

Aller plus loin :

Pellevoisin: Our Lady Reveals the Devotion of the Sacred Heart Scapular by Barbara Beaumont, Augustine Pub. Co. (October 1, 1986)

En savoir plus :

• Yves Chiron, Enquête sur les apparitions de la Vierge, Perrin, 2007, p. 224.
• On the Notre histoire avec Marie website, the article: " At Pellevoisin, the Virgin Mary appeared fifteen times to a young woman and asked her to pray for France ".
• Huillam Daverec's video: "Le M de Marie sur la France et les apparitions mariales de Pellevoisin"
• Website of the shrine of Pellevoisin, including an account of the apparitions.