The Blessed Virgin at La Salette chose children to be the confidants of Her heavenly message, in order to imitate the wise ways of God, who leaves the proud in darkness, who communicates Himself to the hum - ble, who uses weak instruments in order to better manifest His power, to test our faith and to add to the merit of our obedience. Mary shows Herself to shepherds to honor the modest and simple life of the fields so despised today. She appears on a mountain to tell us that the way to find Her is to get closer to heaven, renouncing the vile interests and vain noises of the earth. She chooses the day before the feast of the Seven Sorrows, because it is a sorrow that She comes to announce. (Note: the Church celebrated this feast on the Sunday following September 15.) Finally, She appears at a dried-up spring to teach us that the cause of Her affliction is to see the fountain of grace dry up in our souls, and that if we want to accept Her Heart as our refuge, we can still find our first life. PRAYER O Virgin, in whom God did such great things because of Your abasements, obtain for me the grace to become little in my eyes, so that I may participate in Your ineffable secrets. I want to establish my soul in peace and in a detachment that will allow You to always manifest to me the will of God over me. Make my heart, dried up until now by the fire of passions, quench its thirst only at the pure sources of virtue and the sacraments.