Description of the Most Holy Virgin
SHEPHERDESS of La Salette nee MELANIE CALVAT
The Most Holy Virgin was tall and well-
proportioned. She seemed so light that a mere breath could have stirred Her,
yet She was motionless and perfectly balanced. Her face was majestic, imposing,
but not imposing in the manner of the Lords here below. She compelled a
respectful fear At the same time as Her Majesty compelled respect mingled with
love, she drew me to Her.
MARIA OF THE CROSS, Victim of Jesus, nee MELANIE
CALVAT,
SHEPHERDESS of La Salette Castellamare, 21st of
November 1878.
The Most Holy Virgin was tall and well-
proportioned. She seemed so light that a mere breath could have stirred Her,
yet She was motionless and perfectly balanced. Her face was majestic, imposing,
but not imposing in the manner of the Lords here below. She compelled a
respectful fear At the same time as Her Majesty compelled respect mingled with
love, she drew me to Her.
Her gaze was soft and penetrating. Her
eyes seemed to speak to mine, but the conversation came out of a deep and vivid
feeling of love for this ravishing beauty who was liquefying me. The softness
of Her gaze, Her air of incomprehensible goodness made me understand and feel
that she was drawing me to Her and wanted to give Herself. It was an
_expression of love which cannot be expressed with the tongue of the flesh, nor
with the letters of the alphabet.
The clothing of the Most Holy Virgin was
silver white and quite brilliant. It was quite intangible. It was made up of
light and glory, sparkling and dazzling. There is no _expression nor comparison
to be found on earth. The Holy Virgin was all beauty and all love; the sight of
Her overwhelmed me. In her finery as in Her person, everything radiated the
majesty, the splendor, the magnificence of a Queen beyond compare. She seemed
as white, immaculate, crystallized, dazzling, heavenly, fresh and new as a
Virgin. The word LOVE seemed to slip from Her pure and silvery lips. She
appeared to me like a good Mother, full of kindness, amiability, of love for
us, of compassion and mercy.
The crown of roses which She had placed on Her
head was so beautiful, so brilliant, that it defies imagination. The different colored
roses were not of this earth; it was a joining together of flowers which
crowned the head of the Most Holy Virgin. But the roses kept changing and
replacing each other, and then, from the heart of each rose, there shone a
beautiful entrancing light, which gave the roses a shimmering beauty. From the
crown of roses there seemed to arise golden branches and a number of other
little flowers mingled with the shining ones. The whole thing formed a
most beautiful diadem, which alone shone brighter than our earth's sun.
The Holy Virgin had a most pretty cross hanging
round Her neck. this cross seemed golden. ( I say golden rather than
gold-plated, for I have sometimes seen objects which were golden with varying
shades of gold, which had a much more beautiful effect on my eyes than simple
gold- plate). On this shining, beautiful cross, there was in? Christ, it was
Our Lord on the Cross. Near both ends of the cross there was a hammer, and at
the other end, a pair of tongs. The Christ was skin-colored, but He shone
dazzlingly, and the light that shone forth from His whole body seemed like
brightly shining darts which pierced my heart with the desire to melt inside
Him. At times, the Christ appeared to be dead. His Head was bent forward and
His body seemed to give way, as if about to fall, had He not been held back by
the nails which held him to the Cross.
I felt a deep compassion and would have liked to
tell His unknown love to the whole world, and to let seep into mortal souls the
most heartfelt love and gratitude towards a God who had no need whatsoever of
us to be everything He is, was and always will be. And yet, O love that men
cannot understand, He made Himself man, and wanted to die, yes, die, so as to
better inscribe in our souls and in our memory, the passionate love He has for
us! Oh, how wretched am I to find myself so poor in my _expression of the love
of our good Savior for us! But, in another way, how happy we are to be able to
feel more deeply that which we cannot express!
At other times, the Christ appeared to be alive.
His head was erect. His eyes open, and He seemed to be on the cross of His Own
accord. At times, too, He appeared to speak: He seemed to show that He was on
the cross for our sake, out of love for us, to draw us to His love, and that He
always has more love to give us, that His love in the beginning and in the year
33 is always that of today and will be for ever more.
The Holy Virgin was crying nearly the whole time
she was speaking to me. Her tears flowed gently, one by one, down to her knees,
then, like sparks of light, they disappeared. They were glittering and full of
love. I would have liked to comfort Her and stop Her tears. But it seemed to me
that She needed the tears to show better Her love forgotten by men. I would
have liked to throw myself into Her arms and say to Her: "My kind Mother,
do not cry! I want to love you for all men on earth." But she seemed to be
saying to me: "There are so many who know me not!" I was in between
life and death, and on one side, I saw so much desire by this Mother to be
loved, and on another side, so much cold and indifference... Oh! My Mother,
most beautiful and lovable Mother, my love, heart of my heart!
The tears of our sweet Mother, far from
lessening her air of majesty, of a Queen and a Mistress, seemed, on the
contrary, to embellish Her, to make Her more beautiful, more powerful more
filled with love, more maternal, more ravishing, and I could have wiped away
Her tears which made my heart leap with compassion and love. To see a mother
cry, and such a Mother, without doing everything possible to comfort her and
change her grief into joy, is that possible? Oh! Mother, who is more than good,
you have been formed with all the prerogatives God is able to make; you
have married the power of God, so to speak; you are good, and more, you are
good with the goodness of God Himself. God has extended Himself by making you
His terrestrial and celestial masterpiece. The Most Holy Virgin had a Yellow
pinafore. What am I saying, yellow? She had a pinafore more brilliant than
several suns put together. It was not of tangible material, it was composed of
glory, and this glory was scintillating, and ravishingly beautiful. Everything
in the Holy Virgin carried me firmly and made me kind of slide into the
adoration and love of my Jesus in every state of His mortal life.
The Most Holy Virgin had two chains, one a
little wider than the other. From the narrower one hung the cross which I mentioned
earlier. These chains (Since they must be given the name of chains) were like
rays of brightly shining glory, sparkling and dazzling. Her shoes, (since they
must be called shoes) were white, but a silvery, brilliant white. There were
roses around them. These roses were dazzlingly beautiful, and from the heart of
each rose there shone forth a flame of very beautiful and pleasing light. On
Her shoes there was a buckle of gold, not the gold of this earth, but rather
the gold of paradise. The sight of the Holy Virgin was itself a perfect
paradise. She had everything needed to satisfy, for earth had been forgotten.
The Holy Virgin was surrounded by two lights. The first light, the nearer to
the Most Holy Virgin, reached as far as us. It shone most beautifully and
scintillatingly.
'The second light shone out a little around the
Beautiful Lady and we found ourselves bathed in it. It was motionless (that is
to say that is wasn't scintillating) but much more brilliant than our poor sun
on earth. All this light did not harm nor tire the eyes in any way, In addition
to all these lights, all this splendour, there shone forth concentrations or
beams of light and single rays of light from the body of the Holy Virgin, from
her clothes and from all over Her.
The voice of the Beautiful Lady was soft. It was
enchanting, ravishing, warming to the heart. It satisfied, flattered every
obstacle, it soothed and softened. It seemed to me I could never stop eating up
Her beautiful voice, and my heart seemed to dance or want to go towards Her and
melt inside Her.
The eyes of the most Holy Virgin, our
Sweet Mother. cannot be described in human language. To speak of them, you
would need a seraph, you would need more chant that, you would need the
language of God Himself, of the God who formed the Immaculate Virgin, the
masterpiece of His omnipotence. "The eyes of the majestic Mary appeared
thousands of times more beautiful than the rarest brilliant, diamonds and
precious stones. They shone like two suns; they were soft, softness itself, as
clear as a mirror. In her eyes, you could see paradise. They drew you to Her.
She seemed to want to draw and give Herself. The more I looked, the more I
wanted to see: the more I saw, the more I loved Her and I loved Her with all my
might
The eyes of the beautiful Immaculate One were
like the door to God's Kingdom, by which you could see all that can glare the
soul. When my eyes met those of the Mother of God and of myself, I felt inside
me a happy revolution of love and a declaration that I love Her and am making
with love. As we looked at each other, our eyes spoke to each other in their
fashion, and I loved Her so much I could have kissed Her in the middle of Her
eyes, which touched my soul and seemed to draw it towards them and make it melt
into hers. Her eyes set up a sweet trembling in all my being; and I was
afraid to make the slightest movement which might cause her the smallest
displeasure.
Just the sight of the eyes of the purest of
Virgins would have been enough to make the Heaven of a blessed creature, enough
to fill the soul with the will of the Most High amid the events which occur in
the course of mortal life, enough to make the soul perform continual acts of
praise, of thanksgiving, of atonement and expiation. Just this sight focuses
the soul on God, and makes it like a living-death, looking upon all the things
of this earth, even the things which seem the most serious, as nothing but
childrenšs playthings. The soul would want to hear no one speaking unless they
spoke of God, and of that which affects-His Glory.
Sin is the only evil She sees on earth. She will
die of grief unless God sustains Her.
Amen.