While they were tending their sheep, they saw a brilliant light, brighter than the sun. As they approached, they noticed a “Beautiful Lady” seated on a rock and crying, with her face in her hands. In tears, she stood and spoke to them in their local French dialect. She wore a headdress topped by a lucent crown with a band of roses, a dress with beams of light and slippers edged with roses. Around her neck hung a golden crucifix: on one end of the cross beam was a hammer and nails, and on the other, a pincher. Over her shoulders was a heavy chain.

Msgr. John S. Kennedy gives the following version of the dialogue that ensued. (See “The Lady in Tears,” in A Woman Clothed with the Sun.) She said, “Come to me, my children. Do not be afraid. I am here to tell something of the greatest importance.” She continued,

“If my people will not obey, I shall be compelled to loose my Son’s arm. It is so heavy, so pressing that I can no longer restrain it. How long I have suffered for you! If my Son is not to cast you off, I am obliged to entreat Him without ceasing. But you take not the least notice of that. No matter how well you pray in the future, no matter how well you act, you will never be able to make up to me what I have endured for your sake.

“I have appointed you six days for working. The seventh I have reserved for myself. And no one will give it to me. This it is which causes the weight of my Son’s arm to be crushing. The cart drivers cannot swear without bringing in my Son’s name. These are the two things which make my Son’s arms so burdernsome.

“If the harvest is spoiled, it is your own fault. I warned you last year by means of the potatoes. You paid no heed. Quite the reverse, when you discovered that the potatoes had rotted, you swore, you abused my Son’s name. They will continue to rot, and by Christmas this year there will be none left.

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“If you have grain, it will do no good to sow it, for what you sow the beasts will devour, and any part of it that springs up will crumble into dust when you thresh it.

“A great famine is coming. But before that happens, the children under seven years of age will be seized with trembling and die in their parent’s arms. The grownups will pay for their sins by hunger. The grapes will rot, and the walnuts will turn bad.”

Truly a sobering message. Then Our Lady said, “If people are converted, the rocks will become piles of wheat, and it will be found that the potatoes have sown themselves.” She then asked the children, “Do you say your prayers well, my children?” “No, we hardly say them at all,” they mumbled. “Ah, my children, it is very important to say them, at night and in the morning. When you don’t have time, at least say an Our Father and a Hail Mary. And when you can, say more.”

Our Lady then returned to her chastisement of the people: “Only a few rather old women go to Mass in the summer. All the rest work every Sunday throughout the summer. And in winter, when they don’t know what to do with themselves, they go to Mass only to poke fun at religion. During Lent they flock to the butcher shops, like dogs.” She concluded saying, “My children, you will make this known to all my people.” She then walked away, up a steep path, and disappeared in a bright light.

The children repeated the story to each of their employers. When the people ascertained that the stories matched, and several pious people concluded this had been an apparition of the Blessed Mother, the children were sent to the parish priest of La Salette. The priest recounted the children’s story at Mass. The government officials began an investigation and the children maintained their story despite threats of imprisonment. Once when investigating the site, someone broke off a piece of the rock on which Our Lady had sat; a spring of water emerged in a place that was dry except for when the snows were melting. The spring flowed steadily and abundantly. Some of the water was given to a woman suffering from a long-term serious illness; she drank a little of the water each day as she prayed a novena and on the ninth day, she was cured.